A Wish on a Comet
by morianna19
Summary: (Comet Wish Rewrite). For years, people doubted her about other worlds being real. They shunned her and even called her and her dead parents crazy. Well, the joke is on them for after seeing the inter-dimensional comet, the Timore comet, and making a wish to leave her world, Rose Catone finds her life turned upside down when she wakes up on the deck of the Going Merry. LuffyxOC
1. Chapter 1

**Hello everyone, I want to thank you all for giving the revision a chance. I promise I won't let you down. As I mentioned before Rose is starting out in a different arc in the story which you will all find out at the end. I hope you enjoy and Happy Valentines day. :)**

* * *

New York City, one of the largest cities in the world, and the home to millions of people who walk all kinds of life. There are New Yorkers who only live through a daily routine, but there are those in the city who live only to make their dreams come true. While most of the dreamers aim for fame and fortune, there's one girl who looks up to the stars for her dreams.

Rose Catone has lived all 17 years of her life believing in one thing, and that's that other worlds exist. Just as her astronomer parents did before her. When they were alive, they taught her many aspects of their research and theories. Such as that every story holds a window to another world, that each world is connected. and that the only thing that has managed to travel to all the worlds is a comet with the ability to travel the universes.

Every night since her parents' deaths, Rose would look up to the sky hoping that one night she would be able to see the comet that her family loved so much. Whenever she had the chance, she would also look into every story, including novels, movies, manga, anime, and anything else she could get her hands on to discover another world. She's done this so that that someday when she finds a way to use that comet's power she can leave her world for a better place.

Today however, Rose is making use of the Sunday spring weather by playing her acoustic guitar on the streets before going to work to get some extra cash. She just finished playing a rock song, which signaled for her small audience to cheer for the pale, skinny, girl wearing a light purple t-shirt, long blue jeans, and black sneakers.

A smile formed on Rose's freckled face as she bowed, and allowed her straight brown hair to fall over her shoulders. She quickly straightens up and gestures to the open guitar case that holds various kinds of tips. "Thanks everyone, as always tips are greatly appreciated. As much as I'd love to play all day, I have to go to work soon. However, I can give you one more song. Any requests from the audience? It can be anything from rock to Broadway."

The tourists look around in thought when a nine year old girl yells to her. "PLAY WAVING THROUGH A WINDOW!"

Rose widens her purple eyes at the request. "You mean the song from Dear Evan Hansen?"

"Yea, you said anything right? Then play!"

The girl's mother looks at her rude child disapprovingly. "Mia, it's not nice to demand a song like that."

Mia freezes at her mom's scolding, then looks at Rose with guilt in her eyes. "I'm sorry…"

Rose couldn't help but softly smile at the mother, daughter, pair before she warms up her guitar. "You said 'Waving through a Window' right? Lucky for us, that's one of my favorites."

Mia beams in excitement while her mom softly smiles at the teenager, who is playing the beginning of Waving Through a Window from the musical Dear Evan Hansen.

 _I've learned to slam on the brake~_  
 _Before I even turn the key~_  
 _Before I make the mistake~_  
 _Before I lead with the worst of me~_  
 _Give them no reason to stare~_  
 _No slipping up if you slip away~_  
 _So I've got nothing to share~_  
 _No, I got nothing to say~_

She begins ignoring everything around her as she loses her smile when she remembers every time she felt alone since her parents have died. She looks up to the clear blue sky above the crowd while playing to give herself some comfort.

 _Step out, step out of the sun~_  
 _If you keep getting burned~_  
 _Step out, step out of the sun~_  
 _Because you've learned, because you've learned~_

 _On the outside always looking in~_  
 _Will I ever be more than I've always been? ~_  
 _Cause I'm tap, tap, tapping on the glass~_  
 _I'm waving through a window~_

 _I try to speak but nobody can hear~_  
 _So I wait around for an answer to appear~_  
 _While I'm watch, watch watching people pass~_  
 _I'm waving through a window, oh~_  
 _Can anybody see, is anybody waving back at me?~_

The crowd could only stare in awe at how they felt her strong emotions through the song. Rose sees their stunned reactions, so she quickly puts on a smile for the crowd, and starts moving around to the rhythm.

 _We start with stars in our eyes~_  
 _We start believing that we belong~_  
 _But every sun doesn't rise~_  
 _And no one tells you where you went wrong~_

 _Step out, step out of the sun~_  
 _If you keep getting burned~_  
 _Step out, step out of the sun~_  
 _Because you've learned, because you've learned~_

 _On the outside always looking in~_  
 _Will I ever be more than I've always been? ~_  
 _Cause I'm tap, tap, tapping on the glass~_  
 _I'm waving through a window~_

 _I try to speak but nobody can hear~_  
 _So I wait around for an answer to appear~_  
 _While I'm watch, watch watching people pass~_  
 _I'm waving through a window, oh~_

 _Can anybody see, is anybody waving? ~_

Right down the street a pale, muscular, blonde guy in his thirties who's wearing a police uniform starts smoking a cigar. He freezes when he hears Rose singing then looks over the crowds to see her performing. "Dammit Rose, just when I'm on break too…"

He steps on the cigar to put it out then starts moving through the overcrowded street towards the show.

Rose doesn't notice the unwanted company that's coming her way as she continues to build up her emotions through the song.

 _When you're falling in a forest and there's nobody around~_  
 _Do you ever really crash or even make a sound? ~_  
 _When you're falling in a forest and there's nobody around~_  
 _Do you ever really crash or even make a sound?~_  
 _When you're falling in a forest and there's nobody around~_  
 _Do you ever really crash or even make a sound?~_  
 _When you're falling in a forest and there's nobody around~_  
 _Do you ever really crash or even make a sound?~_  
 _Did I even make a sound?~_  
 _Did I even make a sound?~_  
 _It's like I never made a sound~_  
 _Will I ever make a sound?~_

She freezes for a soft moment when that question comes to her mind before she snaps out of it. She picks up the tempo and lets her feelings out through the ending of the song. _  
_

 _On the outside always looking in~_  
 _Will I ever be more than I've always been? ~_  
 _Cause I'm tap, tap, tapping on the glass~_  
 _I'm waving through a window~_  
 _I try to speak but nobody can hear~_  
 _So I wait around for an answer to appear~_  
 _While I'm watch, watch watching people pass~_  
 _I'm waving through a window, oh!~_  
 _Can anybody see, is anybody waving back at me? Ooh~_  
 _Is anybody waving? ~_  
 _Waving, waving, whoa-oh, whoa-oh-oh-oh~_

She plays the final chord just before the crowd applauds her and leaves their tips in the guitar case.

Mia's mom goes to put a ten dollar bill in the guitar case while Mia runs up to Rose and hands her a quarter. "You were amazing! Thank you for playing that song!"

Rose softly grins at the kid as she takes the quarter and puts it in her pocket. "My pleasure, you have good taste in music. Feel free to come by again to ask for another song."

"Yea!" Mia takes her mom's hand and waves her off while they, and the tourists, start scattering.

Rose goes to the case to collect the tips, but freezes when she sees the cop trying to get through the crowd. _*I was wondering when Bobby was gonna show up today…*_

She starts rushing to take the tips out of the case just when Bobby approaches her.

"Did you really have to play without a permit during my break Rose?"

She chuckles as she finishes placing her tips in the outer pocket of the case then puts the guitar inside. "I thought it would be better for us both if you would turn the other way, since you're off duty Bobby."

"Will you stop calling me that and call me Robert already?!"

She chuckles as she zips up the case then straps it onto her back. "But Bobby suits you better." She stops and furrows her eyebrows as if she's deep in thought. "Well actually, Smoker suits you best since you're practically his blonde twin."

He groans at the nickname. "Quit naming me after that anime character!"

"I'll stop if you quit interfering with my street performing."

He keeps a scowl on his face as he grabs his ticket booklet from his belt and brings out his already made ticket for her. "Not a chance, you're paying the fine this time Ro-!"

He cuts himself off when he looks up to see that she's already made a run for it. "YOU KNOW MY POLICY BOBBY! IF I DON'T GET IT, I DON'T PAY IT!"

"GET BACK HERE!"

Rose continues running through the overcrowded streets while smirking over her shoulder to see Bobby in pursuit. "OH COME ON BOBBY! YOU KNOW STREET PERFORMING PERMITS ARE A WASTE OF MONEY! YOU CAN'T PUT A PRICE ON PLAYING FOR THE PEOPLE!"

"AMEN TO THAT SISTER!" A nearby bucket drummer raises his drum stick to her while the chase runs past him.

Bobby groans in frustration as he maneuvers through the crowds while keeping his eyes on the fleeing brunette. "You can't run forever!"

"Watch me you blonde Smoker impersonator!"

"Quit calling me that!"

"Then quit looking like the white hunter!" Rose keeps her smirk up until she looks at an electric clock, shown on one of the buildings, to see that it's 1:00 in the afternoon.

She groans in frustration while running a hand through her unruly bangs. _*Shit, Naomi's gonna kill me for being late for work again… Better to focus on escaping Bobby right now!*_

Rose looks around for a way to lose the cop until she sees the entrance to an underground subway station. She ran to the entrance and jumped down the stairs as quickly as she could to gain some distance.

Bobby ran down the stairs in pursuit when he saw Rose using the subway pass, that she kept in her pocket, to get through the gate. He quickly followed suit and pursued her all the way to a subway that's about to leave.

Rose made it inside just before the doors closed, causing Bobby to slam his face into them. The cop groans as he tries to open the doors but with no luck.

Rose giggles as she watches the officer struggle through the window, before she playfully bows as if she just gave him a performance. "As always Bobby, it was an honor to go through the running of the cops with you. Until we meet again old friend."

Most of the people in the nearly full subway car laughed at her antics as the train departed before Bobby could open the door.

Rose straightens up and dusts herself off as she looks around at the crowded car for a seat. She finds one next to an old lady then claims it as hers after she leans the guitar case next to the bench. When she's situated in her seat, she turns to the tan middle-aged woman sitting across from her. "Does this line go to 12th street?"

The dark haired woman nods as she looks at the guitar. "Yes, it should be the next stop from here. What exactly did you do to have a cop chasing you?"

Rose chuckles as she pats the guitar case while remembering all the chases she's been through with Bobby for the last five years. "All I did was street perform without a permit. I kind of made it into a game with that cop by making him have to chase me before he could give me a ticket. To be honest, it kind of makes street performing more fun."

A young man in his twenties who's sitting next to the woman chuckles at the explanation. "It sounds like fun. Thanks for making the ride less boring."

"No problem." Rose goes into the outer pocket of her guitar case to switch her subway pass with a One Piece manga, volume 71, and begins reading.

The old lady shifts away to get as far away from Rose as possible, while staying seated, as leans towards her husband.

The old man glares at Rose, over his wife's head before whispering to his spouse. "Kids these days, always causing trouble for people. The only thing they care about are themselves. They need to show adults some respect."

The elder woman nods as she turns to gives her a sideways glance, to see what she's reading, then looks back to her husband. "She's even reading a comic book. She should be working and studying, not playing around and causing mischief. I'd hate to imagine what her parents are like. I'm grateful I'm not her mother- OH!"

The subway suddenly stopped causing the old lady to fall off the bench, but Rose caught her by the arm before she fell to the floor. The old lady only stared in shock as Rose gently helped her back in her seat with one hand while closing the book with the other.

The train slowly moves to a stop as Rose lets go of the woman causing the senior woman to dust herself off as the train stops. "U-umm, thank you…"

Rose nods as she looks ahead with her bangs covering her eyes while putting the book back in her guitar case. She stands up while strapping the case back on and giving her only one bit of acknowledgement. "For what it's worth, I'm grateful you're not my mother too."

The two seniors could only stare as she left the train and ran out to 12th street.

She sighs as she pushes the rude couple's remarks off her back and walks down the street. _*Man, those old geezers need a life. I'd better get to work before I'm even more late.*_

She travels on foot a few blocks down until she reaches a small pizza restaurant and walks inside.

A tall, pale, slightly chubby nineteen year old boy behind the counter, who's wearing the same clothes that Rose is wearing, starts smiling when he sees his coworker walking in. "There you are Rose! Did Smokey chase you around the city again?"

She chuckles at the shared nickname for the blonde cop. "Yea Timothy, but as always Smoker couldn't catch me. I'm not that late am I?"

"You're fifteen minutes late…"

Rose gulps at the sound of her boss' voice when she sees a tall, skinny, pale woman in her mid forties, with her red hair in a ponytail, by the kitchen door with a soft glare on her face. "This is the third time you're late this month…"

Rose rubs the back of her head nervously. "Sorry Naomi, Bobby almost caught me this time but I managed to dodge him on Broadway by taking the subway."

Naomi groans at the excuse. "All this running for street performing… Why don't you pay for the permits again?"

Timothy quietly sighs as he runs a hand through his short brown hair. "Do you have any idea how expensive those things are mom? You could buy all of Miyazaki's movies with that kind of money."

Rose nods in agreement as she takes the volume 71 One Piece manga from her case, and hands it to her fellow anime fan. "Speaking of awesomeness, thanks again for lending me the manga. I just finished it on the subway."

He quickly nods as he takes it back from her. "No problem, I still can't believe you're _now_ starting the Dressrosa Arc. What did you think of the ending?"

Before Rose can answer Naomi steps in. "You guys can talk about anime as much as you want while you're working. Rose, go put your stuff away then clean the tables. Timothy, please go sweep the floors while I make sure we have enough ingredients on hand."

Both teenagers nod as they went into the kitchen to get the supplies. Timothy grabs a broom from the closet then heads to the dining area while Rose places her guitar in the far corner of the room. She pulls her hair into a ponytail before grabbing a roll of paper towels and disinfectant from the closet, then goes to the dining area to wipe the tables.

"So, how did you like the start of the Dressrosa arc?" Timothy asks.

Rose couldn't help but smile as she remembered the beginning of the arc. "It was amazing! That Bartolomeo guy is hilarious, I think later in the arc he'll either be a great ally or an annoying enemy. I can't believe Luffy has both a prince pirate and a giant old guy wanting to kill him for stupid reasons like being related to Garp and stealing attention. Those dwarves in Green Bit are absolutely adorable, and I can't believe Doflamingo tricked the whole world into thinking that he quit the shichibukai!"

He happily nods to her before he starts thinking of all the awesome characters in the story. "I know right?! The story just keeps getting more interesting, and the guys just keep getting hotter!"

She couldn't help but chuckle at her friend's admiration for the guys, and agree with him. "The guys are definitely awesome. Out of all the anime worlds I've looked into, that one has to be the most insane one."

Timothy couldn't agree more, but it's hard for him to hold back on the spoilers. "I just wish you'd catch up already.."

"Sorry, balancing everything during the school year makes it tough on me to keep up with the updates. Just hang on for a few more weeks. As soon as I get off from school and martial arts club for the summer I'll catch up on everything."

"That's good to hear; you need a break from martial arts club." He wears a small frown when he remembers all the bruises and scratches he's seen on his friend since their friendship began two years ago.

Once he finished sweeping, he adjusted his glasses to see that now's no different, because her arms are covered in new and fading scratches along with a couple of bruises. "Don't the teachers at your school's club stop your sparring matches when they get rough or something? You're always getting hurt."

Rose jolts at the reminder of her marks then looks down at her scratches and bruises nervously. "Y-yea they do, but the fights are still rough…"

She starts smiling to ease the tension. "Relax; you should see the other guys. The best is when their pride is shattered from losing a fight to a five and a half foot tall scrawny girl."

Timothy couldn't help but smirk at the thought. "Oh, I can see the look on their faces right now and it looks beautiful."

She nods as she finishes wiping down the tables. "Nothing's more beautiful than a good fight."

"Especially a good anime fight."

She chuckles before she throws away the used paper towels then takes the disinfectant, broom, and the remaining roll of paper towels. "All too true, I'll go put these away."

She walks into the kitchen while Naomi follows in to get some pepperoni sticks from the freezer to slice. "You're still gonna let my son believe that all those scrapes and bruises were just from your school's club, and not also from your foster family?"

Rose widens her purple eyes at the question before she sighs. "There's no point in correcting him. Besides, you know how emotional he gets when he hears about that kind of stuff. I don't want him worrying about me."

Naomi shakes her head as she goes to the meat slicer and starts cutting the pepperoni. "You can't stop him from worrying about his friends. I still don't understand why you put up with that foster dad and his daughters."

Rose sighs as she goes into the closet to put the cleaning supplies away. "You know how bad foster families can be. I'm lucky I only get hit by this one. Besides, the location is perfect. Just on the outskirts of the city where I can stargaze without too much light interference, but still able to call the city home until I accomplish my goal."

She starts smiling at the thought of seeing the comet as she unconsciously pulls her necklace out from under her shirt. She gently holds onto her parents' only memento that's hanging from the silver chain: a rhombus shaped crystal where two colors are split down the middle, black on the left, but red on the right side of the gem.

"I know you want to follow your parents' footsteps in studying that comet, but you can do that after being relocated. Even if that means you have to leave the city."

She snaps out of her thoughts by Naomi's voice before letting go of the necklace so it shows over her shirt. She keeps a smile on her face as she walks out of the closet. "Sorry, but leaving the city is out of the question until I find a way to leave this world. Besides, with less than a year left in the system anyway, there's no point in relocating. Once I turn eighteen, I'll happily leave and get an apartment with the money I saved up."

Naomi looks at her softly as she finishes slicing the meat when Timothy walks into the kitchen.

"Guys, two large families just walked in. I need help with the orders."

Rose and Naomi nod as they head out to the dining area, and neither spoke about the subject for the rest of the dinner rush.

* * *

Once the last customer left the restaurant, the three workers worked to close up the shop. Rose was cleaning the dishes in the kitchen, while Timothy counts the available inventory in the freezer, and Naomi counts up the cash in the dining area.

Timothy finishes writing up the inventory, then runs out of the freezer while he rubs his arms to warm himself up. "Alright, finished!"

Rose chuckles as she washes the last plate, and puts it on the rack to dry. She looks at the clock on the wall to see that it's 7:00 then pulls her straight, brown, hair out her ponytail to let if fall just below her shoulders. "Yea, I'm done too. I'd better get going."

"Off stargazing again?"

"Yup, and I swear tonight's the night. After calculating the timing from the last known sightings, I'm confident that the Timore comet's coming to this world tonight!"

He grins in excitement. "That's awesome! Wait, you didn't figure out a way to leave yet did you?!"

She shakes her head. "Not yet, but I'll be a step closer to understanding the comet tonight."

"I'm glad for you."

"Thanks squeaks, I'll see you tomorrow."

He nods while chuckling at the nickname he earned for his high pitch voice. "See ya, I'll get my next volume of One Piece ready for you. You'd better be ready for even more awesome twists in Dressrosa."

"Can't wait." She straps the guitar case onto her back then walks out of the kitchen.

Before she reaches the door, Naomi walks up to her with a small pile of cash in her hand. "Here's your payment for the week."

Rose takes the cash with a grin and counts it over before nodding. "Thank you."

She nods then quietly sighs at her stubbornness to deal with her foster family. "No problem, but please try to listen. You shouldn't be relying on the comet as your way out. You need to live your life in this world."

Rose softly frowns from the farewell speech as she opens the door. "No promises boss, I'll see you tomorrow."

"See you tomorrow." Naomi waves her off, then when Rose is out the door, she sighs. _*I wish she'd listen to me... I'm glad she has hope in something with this other world insanity, but she needs a better grip on reality... Hopefully she can settle with learning more about the comet if it really does exist...*_

She stares at the door softly for a moment before grabbing her stuff and closing up shop with Timothy.

* * *

Rose walked out of the subway station on the outskirts of New York then walked a few streets down to an old, rundown, apartment building that's been her foster home since she was ten years old.

She places her payment from work into the outer pocket of the guitar case, where she stored her tips from street performing, then walks inside and goes up to the fourth floor. _*Once I put the money and guitar away, I'll head to the rooftop for the rest of the night.*_

She walks into the apartment then stops at the living room to see her two foster sisters turn to her from the couch.

A skinny, tan, eighteen year old girl, with short curly blonde hair, and blue eyes, huffs before she turns back to the TV. "Oh it's just you Rosie; I thought daddy came back from work."

The blonde's identical twin sister follows her sister's example and goes back to watching Jersey Shore. "If you didn't eat, you're going to have to make yourself something."

"That's fine Marie, I already ate." Rose walks past the room then stops to overhear Marie snickering.

"Man, can you believe what Rosie wears as a uniform? She looks like a street rat right Laura?"

"Yea Marie, even that necklace doesn't make her look better. It's like she's trying to be a beggar more than a pizza girl. Hahaha!"

Rose clenches her fists at their laughter, but forces herself to go into her small brown bedroom that holds only a bed, a desk, a dresser, and a closet door. _*They're not worth it tonight. Just put the money and guitar away then get out of here…*_

She takes off the guitar case then sets it by the dresser then goes under her bed to grab her grey lock box she uses to store her money. However, when she pulls it out she freezes when she sees that the box has been forcibly opened, and all the money she stored inside was gone.

She frantically searches under the bed to see if any of the money was there but there was nothing under there. "You gotta be kidding me… Everything was in there…"

She gets out from under the bed, grabs the lock box, furiously storms out of the room to where her foster sisters are, and walks in front of the TV.

Marie looks at her in irritation. "What do you think you're doing? Move out of the way."

Rose glares at them as she shows them her lock box. "Not until you guys tell me where my fucking money is!"

Laura tilts her head in thought. "Your money? Oh, you mean the money you left for us and dad as thanks for taking care of you. We used our share for prom shopping, but I'm not sure what dad did with his."

Rose started to feel nauseous at what she just heard. "You guys did what? I WAS GOING TO USE THAT MONEY TO GET MY OWN PLACE!"

Marie snickers at her fury. "With only like ten grand you couldn't have afforded much anyway. I bet you were using that excuse as a cover to waste it on your Chinese cartoon obsess-!"

She was cut off by Rose who threw the lock box at her face. "FOR THE LAST TIME ANIME IS JAPANESE! IF YOU'RE GONNA INSULT ME THEN DO IT RIGHT YOU BITCH!"

The lock box falls onto Marie's lap before she tosses it to the side, gets up and lunges at Rose, but she kicked her side before she could touch her. Marie growls as she tackles her to the floor while using her long nails to claw at her arms. Rose punches her in the nose to get her off of her and gets up.

Marie lays down while cradling her bleeding nose while Laura ran up to Rose, and continued Marie's work in clawing at Rose. Laura managed to scratch up Roses left side of her neck, and her right cheek before Rose fought back by kneeing her in the gut, then grabbed her by the shirt to punch her in the face, and give her a broken nose to match her sister's.

"WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING ROSE?!" The three girls freeze then turn to the door to see a tall, muscular, blue eyed man in his fifties wearing a security guard's uniform storming into the room.

Marie and Laura immediately rush to their father's side with tears in their eyes as they held their noses to try to stop the bleeding. "Rosie attacked us again daddy!"

Rose clenches her fists while ignoring the pain from the scratches. "You guys are the ones who started it by stealing my money! Laura said you took some of it too Rick, where is it?!"

"I already used it, and even if I still had it, do you really think I'd give it to the savage that harmed my daughters?" Rick turned his attention to Marie and Laura. "How are you two feeling?"

Laura keeps crying while holding onto her bleeding nose. "My nose hurts really bad daddy! What are we going to do about prom?!"

Marie lets go of her nose to see that she's not bleeding anymore and points to her bruised face. "We can't go to prom with our faces like this!"

The girls keep crying causing Rick to pull his girls into a hug before glaring at Rose. "You're not going to get away with this bitch! I expect you to pay for the damages and to apologize for hurting my daughters."

"There's no way I'm apologizing to any of you, and you'd really think I'd give you more money after you stole from me?!"

Rick lets go of his girls and walks up to her with clenched fists. He goes to punch her in the face, but she dodges and punches his nose then kicked his side. Rick staggers back then charges at her and punches her in the gut before she could react.

She dry hacks before trying to punch him again but he grabs the arm and twists it behind her back while grabbing the other arm before she can fight back. "Don't think you can beat me in a fight just because you can throw some punches! You were paid today from that pizza job right? That should be enough to cover the damages. As for your apology, I suggest you think about it when you spend the night out of my apartment!"

Rose grits her teeth while struggling to get out of his hold, but Rick was too strong. He pulls her out of the living room then throws her out without an ounce of regret.

Rose gets up just when Rick slams the door in her face. She tries to open the door to get back in but Rick already locked her out. She froze when she heard the twins laughing from the opposite side.

Marie was the first to recover from laughing. "Did you see the look on her face when you kicked her out? Thank you for taking care of her daddy, we didn't know what that monster would have done if you didn't show up."

Rick groans. "I can only imagine. It looks like the last of her money will be enough to cover up the bruises, so you should be ok for prom. Keeping Rose out of the apartment during prom night is probably best."

Laura hums in agreement. "I wish that girl would join us in the real world already. If she had a clue then she would understand how important a beautiful girl's face is for prom. Guess because her dead crazy parents gave her those dumb ideas about a world travelling comet, there's no more hope for her."

Rose clenches her teeth in fury of their words before she punches the door with all her might!

Before anyone can react to the noise she goes up the stairs to the roof of the building where the cloudless twilight sky was waiting for her.

She looks at the almost fully set sun and sighs in relief. _*Good, the sun didn't finish setting yet. There's still a chance I can see the Timore comet tonight.*_

She walks over by the opposite side of the roof where a large brown tarp is bunched up by the railing. She lifts the tarp to reveal a small first aid kit, a telescope along with a stand, a sleeping bag, a notebook, a timer, and an old digital camera.

She immediately takes out the first aid kit then uses the antibiotic cream to start treating her new scratches.

She cringes as she applies the cream on her arms, cheek and neck then applies bandages on the wounds. _*Damn, did their nail polish get in my blood stream or something? Why does the Neosporin always hurt? As long as it does the job then it's fine. Rick seems to be getting weaker though, his punches are usually worse than that. Glad I got a good punch on his ugly face.*_

She chuckles before her smile starts fading at her new financial situation. They never stole her money before, so she thought it would be safe in a lock box, but that's not an option anymore...

The brunette hugs her knees with one arm and holds onto her crystal necklace with her free hand to help her get some comfort. _*Dammit, there's no way I can make up all the money before I turn eighteen… Why can't they leave me alone?!*_

She clenches onto the crystal tighter while tears start filling her eyes, but before they could fall she wipes them off, let's go of the crystal, then stands up with a determined look on her face. _*I can't cry now, that'll just satisfy those jerks more!*_

She goes to the railing, where the view of the distant Manhattan Skyline can be seen miles away from here, then takes a deep breath before she shouts out her frustrations. "MARIE, LAURA, AND RICK ARE OTAKU HATING ASSHOLES!"

She calms herself down then chuckles at her shouting. "That felt good." _*I'll figure something out about the money, but for now I'm gonna enjoy tonight.*_

She looks up to see a few stars beginning to come out onto the cloudless night sky, so she turns around, and goes to the opposite side of the roof to set up the telescope stand. Once it's set, she places the telescope on, and uses it to look at the stars in the sky. _*Ok, things are looking good. Glad there aren't any clouds tonight or I could've lost my chance. I should get some of tonight's details in the notebook now.*_

She looks towards the moon to see the crescent moon out then writes out the astronomical facts in her journal. _*Ok, tonight's lunar phase is a waxing crescent. It doesn't look like there's anything else out of the ordinary for tonight yet. I'd better get the camera and timer ready.*_

She places the notebook down then grabs her timer, and camera to be ready to use at any moment. She barely has time to think when a blue light shines down on her from above!

She looks up with wide eyes to see the light is from a large blue comet that's flying across the sky. "Holy shit, it's here!"

The smile on Rose's freckled face couldn't be bigger as she starts the timer with one hand, and takes pictures of the flying comet with the other. After taking ten pictures, she uses her telescope to get a better view of the comet until it suddenly vanished from view as if it was never there.

Rose stopped the timer, placed the camera down and started writing in her notebook again. _*So that was the Timore comet! It was so beautiful! It looks like it traveled here for only three and a half minutes. It didn't even leave a gas trail behind like normal comets would. This is big!*_

Rose finishes jotting down her notes then softly smiles at the night sky. "Looks like I'm another step closer now, huh mom and dad?"

She caresses her necklace in her hand, while she stares at the sky for a moment before she sighs to herself. "The only question now is how can I use its energy the next time it comes around? Haha, who knows? Maybe making a wish could work."

She chuckles before continuing her joke as she keeps her focus on where the comet was. "Now that would be funny, maybe the next time I see it I'll tell it. 'I wish to go to the anime world! If I can choose which one then I want to go to the One Piece world!' Hahaha!"

She finishes laughing then quietly sighs as she releases her necklace. "If only it were that easy. Now that I've seen the comet for myself I'll get started on finding ways to use it tomorrow."

She puts away everything, but the sleeping bag which she unravels, and wraps herself inside. She gives one last look at the stars before falling asleep. However, during all that excitement, she missed the faint blue glow that her crystal necklace has gained since the comet came. While she was fast asleep, the crystal's new light began to envelope around her. Once it reached her entire body and clothes, she vanished into thin air with only the empty sleeping bag left behin.

* * *

 _A seven year old Rose sits in the principal's office of her elementary school with bandages on her arms and face while an old man, who is sitting at his desk, gives her a disapproving look. "Why must you always cause trouble for others? This is the sixth fight you were called in for."_

 _Rose groans as she crosses her arms over her chest. "It's not my fault the other kids won't shut up."_

 _The principal's eyes, that are hidden behind his glasses, narrow at the cheeky brat. "It's kids like you that gives schools a bad reputation, and should be placed in-!"_

 _He was cut off when he heard the door knocking then a woman in her thirties, with her blonde hair in a ponytail, walks in. "Sorry to interrupt Principal. Mason, but Rose's parents are here."_

 _"Very good, bring them in."_

 _She nods as she leads her parents into the room, while the child lowers her head to avoid their gaze._

 _Principal Mason smiles at the couple as if he wasn't just insulting their daughter. "It's a pleasure to meet you both. I'm Principal Thomas Mason, but you can call me Thomas."_

 _A woman in her late thirties with long black hair, pale skin and purple eyes nods with a smile. "I'm Rose's mother, Teresa."_

 _A pale man in his late thirties with shaggy brown hair, pale skin with freckles decorating his cheeks, and brown eyes hidden behind eyeglasses, shakes his hand. "I'm her father, Joe. What exactly happened?"_

 _The administrator tiredly sighs before he looks to the troublesome child with a disapproving scowl. "To put it bluntly, your daughter has been getting into too many fights. Leaving alone the fact that it's unsightly for a girl to be fighting, she's been beating up kids left and right and giving them nosebleeds."_

 _Rose lifts her head at the claim and glares at him. "It wasn't left and right! Just the ones who were insulting my parents!"_

 _Joe and Teresa widen their eyes at this while Thomas huffs. "Violence is never the answer young lady. You should have learned that by now."_

 _Teresa scowls at the principal's demeaning tone towards her daughter. "Have the kids that bothered her been called here?"_

 _He shakes his head. "Of course not! They weren't the ones throwing punches like a brute. If you two don't mind, I'd like to discuss her punishment with you as well as a way to solve her violence problem."_

 _Joe furrows his eyebrows in anger before he turns to his wife and daughter. "Would you two wait outside? This will be over in a bit."_

 _Teresa sighs in exasperation as she takes her daughter by the hand and brings her out of the office. "Try not to scare the old man to death hon."_

 _"No promises…"_

 _Thomas looks at the family in confusion until the door was shut. Joe ignores his confusion as he take his glasses off, and give him a glare that nearly gives him a heart attack._

 _The demonic smirk that began to grow on Joe's face, after he saw the principal's reaction, only served to frighten the old man more. "Now then, what was that about my daughter having a violence problem?"_  
 _  
While Joe was scaring the life out of the old man in the office, Rose waited outside the room with her mother and turned to her with guilt in her eyes._ _"I'm sorry mom, I didn't think they were going to call you guys out of your lecture…"_

 _Teresa quietly sighs at her daughter's concern for her and Joe's teaching jobs at New York University, before she ruffles her hair. "It doesn't matter if we had classes or not, we'd still come. So, those kids were insulting our research again?"_

 _She nods as she stares at the floor sadly. "They kept calling the three of us crazy for believing in other worlds and I snapped…"_

 _Teresa looks at her softly before she pulls her into a hug. "I know it's hard, but your father and I won't give up researching the Timore Comet just because some people don't believe us. Once we figure out how to use the comet to leave this world, we'll find a better place. Until then please bear with it, their words only hurt if you let them."_

 _Rose nods as she hugs her mother back when the door to the principal's office opened to Joe smiling, as if nothing happened, with his glasses back on. "Are you two ready to go? Rose, you're being sent home early today, but tomorrow you can come back. Thomas said that he'll make sure the kids don't insult us anymore."_

 _Both girls looked over Joe to see Thomas trembling in his chair and on the brink of tears._

 _Teresa face palms at her husband's antics. "I told you not to scare him too much… Oh well, at least it didn't end too badly."_

 _Joe nods while he picks his daughter up, and the three of them leave the school. He looks down at Rose while he keeps her in his arms. "How are you feeling?"_

 _She looks up at him with a soft look on her freckled face and wraps her arms around his neck. "I'm feeling better. I'm sorry for causing you trouble."_

 _He shakes his head. "It's no trouble at all. I'm glad I can use my glare of death on that jerk. That look on his face was priceless."_

 _Rose giggles at the memory of her principal's fright from her father's glare, and makes both of her parents to smile._

 _Teresa sees a park coming up then turns to Rose. "Since the three of us are off school now, how about we play in the park for a bit?"_

 _Rose eagerly nods, so Joe puts her down, and the three of them run off to begin playing the day away._

* * *

Rose smiles from the happy memory in her sleep, but it fades when a cool breeze hits her. She starts to shiver, but when she tried to curl herself up in her sleeping bag, the only thing she grabbed was the air.

She slowly opened her eyes then quickly sat up, and looked around to see that she was no longer on the rooftop of her foster home, but on the deck of a boat in the middle of the day!

"What the hell?!" She stood up and looked out to see that the boat was docked on a jungle island. She looks down at herself to see that she's wearing her non glowing necklace, her clothes, and the bandages that she placed on herself yesterday. _*Ok, it doesn't look like I was kidnapped, but where the hell am I?!*_

She looks around frantically for anyone on board, but she's the only one on deck. She finally understands what happened when she sees the goat figurehead on the front of the ship, and immediately recognizes it. "HOLY SHIT, I'M ON THE GOING MERRY!"

Her look of shock immediately changed to pure excitement as she danced for joy then froze to pinch one of her bandaged arms. When she feels pain from the pinch she cringes, but that doesn't take the enormous smile off her face. _*It's not a dream! I can't believe it! Wait, how did this happen?! Please don't tell me a wish to the Timore Comet was all that it took, because that's just too easy...*_

She shakes her head to snap herself out of it then starts focusing on her situation. _*If this is really the Straw Hats' ship then what arc are we in? I'm sure everyone's on the island or else they would have noticed me…*_

She looks at Merry's figurehead in thought and starts to calculate what time period she could be in. _*Ok, since Merry's here that means we're somewhere before Water Seven, but after Syrup Village… I think we're on the Grand Line, because I don't recall them visiting a jungle in East Blue...*_

She looks around in thought then freezes when she looks up and sees a pterodactyl flying above the island!

Once she sees the dinosaur, she immediately knows where she is and rakes her hands through her brown hair. "Holy crap, this is Little Garden! Really awesome that I can meet Vivi and Carue, but REALLY bad that I'm trespassing on the ship at a time when I could be mistaken for a Baroque Works agent!"

She takes a deep breath to calm herself down while she paces the deck. "Ok, I got two options here: Leave the ship and face the dinosaurs in hopes of befriending the crew. Or I could stay here where it's safe for now and try to convince them that I'm not an enemy when they get back… I'm gonna be facing someone's wrath, but do I want the wrath of the dinosaurs or the Straw Hats?"

She stops and looks at the island blankly for a split second before she gets ready to leave the ship. _*Dinosaurs it is, maybe if I'm lucky I can meet one of the giants too!*_

She grins in excitement as she climbs down the rope ladder, and runs off into the heart of Little Garden to see what her new life has in store for her.

TO BE CONTINUED


	2. Chapter 2

"Is it too late to go back to the ship?" Rose questions her decision, because after five minutes of exploring the island, she finds herself standing with her back against a tree, and staring face to face with a T-Rex that's taller than the tree behind her.

She gulps when she sees her reflection from the dinosaur's large, golden, eyes, and tries to stay as still as humanly possible. _*Holy freaking shit, this is nuts! As long as I don't move he won't see me and go away... Right?*_

She holds back from trembling until the dinosaur starts baring his fangs which only confirms one thing for her. _*THAT THEORY'S A LOAD OF BULL CRAP!*_

Just when the dinosaur tries to bite her, Rose jumps out of the way. The reptile misses his prey and bites into the huge tree that was behind her, lifts it from its roots, and bites through it like a toothpick.

Rose pales at the sight before she runs like a bat out of hell with the dinosaur in pursuit. _*Of all the dinosaurs to meet it had to be one of the deadliest ones! What the hell am I gonna do now?!*_

She keeps running until a giant triceratops comes charging at the T-Rex from the side. The T-Rex takes the blow from his opponent, but stays standing to use his thick skull to headbutt him.

Rose stopped and turned around to see the two dinosaurs fighting with dread. _*I'm gonna be lucky to survive the island before I meet anyone...*_

She makes a run for it while they're distracted until she completely lost sight of them. When she knows for sure that she's at a safe distance, she leans to the side against a papaya tree and sits down to catch her breath. _*Wow, this really is the One Piece world. Don't think I could run for my life like this in any other anime.*_

She softly chuckles at the joke she made in her mind, but loses her smile when she realizes that she has no idea what she'll do if she meets the Straw Hats. _*Maybe I can ask them for a ride to Alabasta, and try setting up shop as an astronomer after the craziness dies down. Drum Island wouldn't be good since the winter clouds block the sky too much, and spending time with the crew a little longer would be awesome too.*_

She nods to her plan as she grabs the papaya tree to get up, which accidentally shakes it. The shaking makes one of the fruits fall from the tree, and hits her head before it hits the ground.

Rose groans from the hit as she rubs her aching head. "Ouch, what the-?!"

She cuts herself off when she takes a closer look at the papaya, and sees that it's light blue with black swirls decorating the entire fruit. "A DEVIL FRUIT?!"

She quickly picks it up and looks it over to see that it's the genuine article. _*Holy shit, what kind of power is it?!*_

She stares at the fruit, and silently wonders if eating it would be worth the bad taste until her stomach starts growling. She stares at the fruit blankly for a second before she sighs. "Right, I didn't eat today… I'm not much of a swimmer anyway, so whatever power won't be a bad trade off."

The second the Rose took the first bite of the devil fruit, she placed a hand over her mouth to stop herself from throwing up. _*EW! THESE THINGS REALLY ARE GROSS!*_

She forces herself to eat the rest of the fruit then she gives the tree a strong side kick, so that it drops a normal papaya. She grabs the fruit, and starts munches on it as quickly as possible to take that rotten taste out of her mouth. _*Ugh, that's the grossest thing ever! What kind of devil fruit was it anyway?*_

She finishes the fruit then waves her arms around for some kind of reaction, but nothing happens. _*Oh well, I'll find out later. I'd better-!*_

She freezes when the T-Rex, that was chasing her before, comes running towards her again. "WHAT THE HELL'S WRONG WITH YOU?! CAN'T YOU SEE THAT I'M NOT MUCH OF A MEAL?!"

She runs away with the dinosaur in pursuit, then looks back to see him gaining on her. _*Shit, shit, shit! How am I-?*_

The brunette comes out of her thoughts when she sees the dinosaur stop and look at her in utter shock.

She raises an eyebrow at his stop, but she doesn't take any chances as she keeps running. "What's the matter with-?!"

She cuts herself off when she realizes that her feet aren't hitting the ground anymore, but she's still gaining distance. She snaps her head down, and widens her purple eyes when she sees that a gust of wind is picking her up, so that she's now flying away from the dinosaur!

"What the hell?! Wait, I ate the wind wind fruit?!" Rose's shock changes to pure excitement as she looks down with stars in her eyes, and flies five feet into the air throughout the jungle. "THIS IS SO AWESOME!"

The smile on her face refuses to go away until she breaks through a few branches, which makes her remember one important detail: she has no control over her ability!

"How the hell do I stop this thing?!" She continues flying out of control, with no idea on how to stop, when she sees that she's heading a group of people that are coming into view.

She drops her jaw when she gets a closer look to see that, if she keeps her course, she's going to crash into a boy with a long nose and curly black hair, a boy wearing a straw hat, and a giant duck from behind. _*Oh crap, Luffy, Usopp and Carue?!*_

The pirates don't see the girl that's flying not too far behind them as they keep running.

Luffy keeps his hands into tight fists as he looks around furiously. "Where are those Baroque Works bastards?! I'm gonna make them pay for taking Vivi!"

Usopp nods in agreement as he tightens his hold on his slingshot. "I won't forgive them for messing with the giants' honor either!"

Carue quacks in agreement as he looks like he's ready to fight someone at any moment.

"HEY, GET OUT OF THE WAY! THERE'S A RUNAWAY NERD FLYING BEHIND YOU!"

The three guys stop at the feminine voice behind them, and turn around to see Rose flying towards them.

Usopp and Carue froze at the sight as their eyes bug out of their heads while their jaws fall to their feet.

Luffy however, looks at the flying girl with stars in his eyes, and smiles from ear to ear. "Whoa, she's flying?! That's awesome!"

Rose was not amused when she sees them not moving, and grits her teeth in anger. "QUIT STARING AT ME AND MOVE! I DON'T KNOW HOW TO STOP!"

Usopp and Carue jumped out of the way in time, but Luffy grabbed onto her shoulders and hugged her from behind to join the ride!

Rose turns her head in utter shock to see Monkey D. Luffy's smiling face an inch away from hers.

Her face immediately erupts into a blush from the closeness as her wind continues to take her through the jungle with a passenger. "What the hell are you doing?! I told you to get out of the way!"

Luffy laughs in excitement as he keeps his arms around her and rests his head on her shoulder. "Shishishi, I'm glad I didn't, this is awesome!"

Rose groans at the crazy situation as she keeps flying while Usopp gets on Carue's back and starts riding after them.

When Usopp starts catching up to the flying pair, he starts yelling to his captain. "LUFFY, DON'T JUST TAKE RIDES FROM RANDOM FLYING PEOPLE! THAT GIRL COULD BE ANOTHER BAROQUE WORKS AGENT!"

Luffy widens his eyes at the possibility before he glares at Rose as if she's an enemy. "You're not working with Baroque Works are you?"

Rose shakes her head while being unfazed by the rubber man's hard gaze. "No, I'm not with those assholes. I wound up on the island by accident. My name's Rose by the way."

Once Luffy heard the honest explanation, his face quickly changes back to a cheerful smile. "I'm Luffy! Hey, did you see a gross booger guy and an annoying girl in yellow anywhere? They took one of our friends."

"Sorry, haven't seen them." _*He must be talking about Mr. 5 and Ms. Valentine. Guess that means we're heading to the fight between his crew and Mr. 3.*_

She looks around then sees a giant wax figure, with lit candles spinning on the top of it, appearing over the trees in the distance. "I think I know where those jerks are though. I can give you a hand if you want."

Luffy nods while he raises a fist in the air. "Yosh, let's go!"

Usopp widens his eyes at seeing the mysterious brunette flying off with his captain before he and Carue rush to catch up to them. "AT LEAST WAIT FOR US DAMMIT!"

* * *

In a large clearing of the jungle Mr. 3, Mr. 5, Ms. Valentine and Ms. Goldenweek watch Mr. 3's giant half dome base, hold spinning lit candles on top of a large pole on a large wax birthday cake in amusement.

Nami, Vivi and Zoro, who have their feet trapped in the bottom layers of the wax cake however, don't share the feeling as they look up to see melted wax flakes from the candles falling towards them.

Mr. 3 smirks at his prisoners, as he steps forward, and watches the spinning candles create the white mist that's showering over the pirates. "I hope you like my candle service set. The candle mist, that's falling from those candles above you, will slowly turn you into candles! You'll become my best artwork, so die for the sake of my art!"

Nami widens her brown eyes at what will happen as she tries to pull her feet out of the wax, but it's no good. "No way! Why do we have to die for your art?!"

She turns to the blonde giant, whose wrists and ankles are pinned to the ground by giant rings of wax, right next to the candle. "Don't just lay there Broggy! If you don't do something, you'll turn into a candle too!"

Mr. 3 laughs at her cries while he crosses his arms over his chest. "It doesn't matter what you say, it won't work. My wax is too strong for him to break. He was so distracted from his victory over his opponent that it was easy to take him down. Along with the giant Dorry, who he killed thanks to the bombs I placed in his rum, their bounties will be easy to take."

Vivi glares at him as she struggles to free herself. "YOU MONSTER! YOU HAD NO RIGHT TO MESS WITH THEIR FIGHT!"

Mr. 3 scoffs at the princess' complaining. "I did him a favor by making him the winner. You should have seen him before. He was so happy that he cried over his victory. Well, either that or for the loss of his friend."

The wax man starts laughing at the irony. "If it was over his friend, he must be really stupid! He killed his best friend for hundreds of years and during that fight he didn't even realize that Dorry was injured! Hahaha, in any case we can't change anything now."

Broggy grits his teeth as he glares at the Baroque Works agent. "I knew since we started the fight that something was wrong with Dorry…"

Mr. 3 chuckles at that. "You knew? You must be lying. If you knew then why did you still fight? You didn't show him any mercy towards him."

Broggy grunts as he starts struggling with the wax rings. "You don't know the meaning of this battle! How can you understand what my tears were meant for?! A person like you won't understand! Dorry fought with pride in his heart, how can I disgrace him? YOU THINK I CAN DESTROY THE PRIDE OF A WARRIOR WHO WAS READY TO RISK HIS LIFE IN THIS FIGHT!?"

The four agents widen their eyes when they see Broggy starting to break the wax rings holding him down while continuing his speech. "I completely understood his pride. That's why I had to fight him with these hands! It was the best thing I can do for him!"

Before Broggy could escape, Mr. 5 picked his nose to create a bomb, then flicked it at the giant just before it blew up.

Nami and Vivi widen their eyes at the injuring blow. "BROGGY!"

Mr. 5 clicks his tongue at the view. "He was getting on my nerves."

Ms. Valentine laughs at the sight of Broggy's charred body that's still struggling in the rings. "Kyahahaha, how stupid! He's still trying to get up!"

Ms. Goldenweek stays silent while Mr. 3 steps forward. "Seems I underestimated the giant's strength. I never thought he could destroy my wax."

He turns his arm into wax to create four giant knives made of wax. "Let's see if you can do anything now!"

Before the giant can escape, Mr. 3 stabs both Broggy's hands and feet with the giant knives. "Hahaha, if you try escaping you will completely destroy your arms and legs!"

Broggy writhes in agony while Vivi glares at Mr. 3. "That was low even for you."

Mr. 3 ignores her statement as he uses his wax powers to speed up the spinning candles. "It doesn't matter as long as it gets the job done! Now, be good and become my artwork!"

The wax mist starts showering over Vivi, Zoro, Nami, and Broggy which causes Nami to cough.

"I-I can't breathe!" She freezes when she sees that their limbs are slowly turning white from the wax. "It's starting! Zoro, do something!"

Zoro unsheathes two of his swords. "If you lose your arms or legs it's better than dying right?"

Vivi and Nami look at him in confusion as he starts smirking. "I'll cut both my legs off then fight them!"

When Nami sees the swords, she looks at him in utter shock. "Are you crazy?! This isn't the time to joke around!"

"Who said it was a joke?"

Vivi widens her eyes at this. "You can't be serious! If you do that you'll only be caught again!"

Zoro shrugs. "You never know if you don't try. I don't want to lose to these pieces of trash."

Mr. 5 quirks an eyebrow at the swordsman's statement. "Is he really going to do it?"

Mr. 3 scoffs at the escape plan. "He's just boasting. No one's crazy enough to do that."

Everyone freezes when they hear Broggy laughing while he's getting ready to try to escape again. "Gabababa, you're a very brave man swordsman. I was about to give up too, but I'll fight besides you."

Nami groans in frustration of their recklessness. "Quit joking already! If you cut off your legs then how are you going to fight them?!"

Zoro chuckles as he gets ready to cut his legs off. "As long as I don't give up then I'll find a way."

Vivi stares at him in awe before she nods to the plan. "Once you're free, do the same for me. I'll fight too!"

Zoro nods in agreement as he gets ready to start cutting. "You got it."

Mr. 3 glares at them as he turns his arms into wax. "Let's see if you can do anything when I-!"

"WE'VE COME TO CRUSH YOU BAROQUE WORKS!"

The group freezes at the sound of Luffy yelling, and looks to see Usopp riding on Carue while Luffy flies on Rose's back. Vivi, Zoro and Nami are completely slack jawed at the sight of Luffy, and the mysterious girl, flying towards them.

Rose sees that she's flying towards the spinning candles, then grabs Luffy's arms. "Alright Luffy, joy ride's over! Get off!"

She flips in mid air to throw Luffy off of her back, and at Usopp and Carue. The sniper and duck freeze at the throw, but before they can get out of the way, Luffy crashes into them.

The guys get up and see Rose crash into one of the spinning candles, which stops her wind from holding her up. The candle went out as the top half broke off just before Rose fell off the wax and into a large, plush, bush.

Mr. 3 widens his eyes in utter horror of the broken candle that completely shatters his vision for what he wanted his artwork to be. "MY ART!"

Ms. Goldenweek sits on a picnic blanket, while casually eating some rice crackers, and stares at the candles blankly. "Can't you just replace it?"

"It won't be as beautiful as the original piece no matter how hard I try!" He whines before his sorrow turns into fury as he faces Mr. 5 and Ms. Valentine. "I thought you told me that you killed Straw Hat and his friends!"

Mr. 5 flinches at his rage before raises his hands up defensively. "I thought we did with my bombs. The flying girl wasn't there when we kidnapped Ms. Wednesday though!"

Ms. Valentine looks at the bush Rose fell into in confusion, when she sees that the newcomer hasn't come out yet. "Did the brat die from the fall or something?"

"I'm ok!" Rose slowly gets out of the bush while rolling her arms to ease some of the pain from the crash. She brushes the debris off of her body and looks up at the broken candle. _*Being able to fly like that's awesome, but I gotta work on my landing.*_

Zoro sweat drops at the freckled girl's crazy entrance while he sheathes one of his swords, without trying to cut his legs off. "Who the hell is this now? Another Baroque Works agent?"

Vivi looks down at Rose, while thinking hard on if she ever saw her in Baroque Works' ranks when she was working for them, but she doesn't recognize her. "I'm not sure; I know she's not one of the higher numbers."

Nami looks up to see that the mist isn't coming down as hard, because of the broken candle, then turns to Luffy. "We can worry about her later! Luffy, hurry up and beat them!"

Luffy nods as he gets in a stance along with Usopp and Carue. "No problem, I'll kick their asses!"

Usopp nods as he puts his goggles on. "Don't worry Broggy; we'll get you out too!"

Mr. 3 twitches an eyebrow in irritation as he gets ready to fight. "These kids are really annoying. I'll take care of the leader while you take care of the other filth."

Usopp glares at him. "You guys are the annoying ones! Don't worry, I'll kill you all!"

Carue quacks in agreement as he and Usopp back away into the jungle.

Usopp clenches his slingshot while hiding behind a tree. "Luffy, we'll cover you from behind!"

Luffy nods while Broggy turns to Zoro. "You're not going to try to escape now?"

He nods as he raises his sword up in a pose. "We'll be out of here in a bit. If not, I can at least get a good pose. You guys should pose too just in case."

Nami looks at his carefree attitude in irritation. "This isn't a joke!"

Vivi looks at Zoro in mild shock, but understands that he has faith in his captain, so she grins in assurance. "Right, we'll be out of here soon."

Mr. 3 begins attacking Luffy by creating a bar of wax and locks Luffy's feet in them. Before Mr. 3 could encase Luffy's body, he stretches his arms to grab onto the hilt of one of the wax swords and swings around until he slams the wax bar around his legs to destroy the pole holding the candles, along with the wax around his legs!

Nami, Vivi and Zoro look at the candles in horror as the base holding the candles falls towards them, but it lands on the top layer of the cake just above their heads.

Nami sighs in relief that she wasn't crushed by the structure. "We're still alive."

Luffy looks at them in confusion. "That's dangerous, why didn't you run?"

Zoro, Vivi and Nami look at him in disbelief of him not knowing that they're trapped. "WE CAN'T MOVE!"

"Why didn't you tell me that?"

Broggy widens his eyes at Luffy's ignorance. "ARE YOU SURE WE CAN TRUST THIS GUY?!"

Zoro remains silent which causes Vivi to look at him in disbelief. "MR. BUSHIDO!"

The swordsman sighs when he tries to move his white arm, that's holding his sword, but it won't budge. "We don't have a choice. I can't move my arms anymore."

Mr. 3 creates a clay harpoon from his arms and shoots at Luffy, but he jumps to dodge.

Usopp keeps his distance as he aims his slingshot at the wax man. "Taste my exploding star!"

He fires the exploding star at Mr. 3, but before it could hit him Mr. 5 ate it.

Usopp widens his eyes at what he just witnessed. "What the hell?!"

Mr. 5 swallows it and lets it explode in his stomach before breathing out smoke. "Bombs won't affect a bomb man like me. Especially ones with low quality gunpowder like yours."

Usopp and Carue freeze at this while he walks up to face them and Luffy continues fighting Mr. 3.

Rose widens her eyes when she sees that most of Vivi, Zoro, and Nami's bodies have turned white from the wax. She looks up at the candles while deciding the the best course of action is to put out the candles with her newfound power.

She jumps to try to get herself flying again, but it's not working. "What the hell?! Come on!"

"Kyahahaha! Looks like your little flight was just a fluke bitch!" Rose looks up to see Ms. Valentine floating, with her open umbrella, right above her.

"I hope you enjoy being driven into the ground!" She closes her umbrella and uses her kilo-kilo devil fruit to make herself weigh a thousand kilograms.

Rose widens her eyes at the attack and runs to dodge the falling woman. She manages to avoid the attack, but stops running when her wind picks her up and almost makes her lose her balance.

Ms. Valentine gets up and starts floating after her. "Kyahaha, you really don't know how to fly can you? Crushing you is going to be fun!"

Rose glares at her before she beckons her to come forward. "Come and get me then, Ms. Yellabitch!"

Ms. Valentine immediately loses her smile from the insult as she goes higher. "IT'S MS. VALENTINE!" She quickly glides far above her, then closes her umbrella. "Let's see if you can dodge a ten thousand kilogram weight!"

Rose tries to move around, but her wind's keeping her in the same position. _*Shit, I'm a sitting duck!*_

Rose raises her arms up to brace herself for being crushed by the Baroque Works agent, but it never happened! Rose looks down in shock to find that the blonde fell straight through her, and pile drove herself a few feet into the ground.

Ms. Valentine groans at the fall as she stays in the hole to recover.

Rose widens her eyes at what just happened while her power keeps her flying ten feet in the air. _*She went through me?! Looks like I really am a logia user!*_

"GUM GUM PISTOL!" Rose snaps out of her thought to see Luffy punch Mr. 3 in the gut, and send him flying into the jungle. She blinks at the awesome punch as she starts feeling ecstatic of being here to witness Luffy's fight in person.

Nami smiles in relief of that they won't need to deal with the wax man now. "Great job Luffy, now get us out of here."

Luffy looks at her blankly before he shakes his head. "No."

Nami widens her eyes in shock of her captain's refusal to help. "What are you talking about?! Hurry up and help us!"

Rose looks down to see Luffy looking at them blankly while he's standing on top of a black crossed out circle. "I don't want to help you."

The brunette groans in frustration when she realizes that he's in Ms. Goldenweek's color trap. She looks at the candles and focuses on her goal of trying to blow out the candles as she waves her arms to try to create some wind.

Usopp looks at his captain in confusion as he keeps riding Carue to dodge Mr. 5's bombs. "What's the matter with Luffy?! AAAAH!"

Carue and Usopp were sent flying by the blast from the bomb they barely dodged and crashed onto a tree. They start getting up while Mr. 5 walks up to them.

"You should be more concerned about yourselves. He's already fallen into our color trap. With your leader trapped you're all going to die!" He tries blasting them with another bomb but they dodge again and continue running. Mr. 5 clicks his tongue at his fleeing opponents as he goes after them.

Vivi glares at Ms. Goldenweek, who's eating a rice cracker in one hand, while holding a paint brush with the other. "What did you do to him?!"

The little girl lifts her paint brush that's holding black paint at the tip. "I placed him in my black color trap. Black is the color of betrayal. If someone is painted with it, he won't listen to a person's orders and not care about his friends."

Vivi groans at the explanation before she shouts to the captain. "LUFFY, DON'T STEP OUT OF THE PAINT SYMBOL!"

"You're not the boss of me. I won't listen to you." Luffy takes a step back to get off of the paint symbol, then blinks in surprise when he snaps out of his trance.

"What the-?! What happened?! Hang on guys, I'll get you out now-" He stops what he was saying before he starts smiling. "But first, I gotta laugh! SHISHISHISHI!"

Nami looks at the laughing man in utter shock. "WHAT THE HELL'S WRONG WITH HIM NOW?!"

Ms. Goldenweek lifts her paint brush that's now holding yellow paint at the tip. "Color trap. Yellow is the color of fun. He can only laugh now."

Vivi starts groaning in frustration of this endless cycle. "Luffy, take off your shirt!"

Luffy ignores her and keeps laughing which causing Zoro to scowl at this mess. "This is bad, we don't have much time left."

Usopp and Carue run past Luffy from behind, and accidentally smear the paint off his back, before they run into the jungle with Mr. 5 chasing after them with booger bombs.

Luffy immediately he snaps out of it and jumps away from Ms. Goldenweek. "Hey kid, that's enough!"

The child tilts her head in confusion. "Yellow's supposed to be the color of fun. You must have had a good time right?"

"SHUT UP! ARE YOU CRAZY OR SOMETHING?!" He runs to the wax and pulls his arms back. "I'M DESTROYING THAT THING RIGHT NOW! GUM GUM- Bazooka..." He hits the red target on the ground that Ms. Goldenweek made.

The little painter looks at him blankly while she picks up her pallet. "I can't let you destroy that thing or Mr. 3 will be mad at me. You can hit that sign just like a bull always wanting to hit a red target."

"SHUT UP! NO I WON'T! GUM GUM-" He hits the red target again. "Pistol..."

Ms. Goldenweek looks at her pallet and starts mixing the colors. "I'll mix a color just for you. Yellow, the color of fun along with blue which is the color of sadness. Together they create green which is the color of peace."

She slabs the green paint onto Luffy's back, which forces him to sit on the picnic blanket with Ms. Goldenweek, and drink some tea with her.

He takes a sip of his tea before sighing. "This tea is delicious."

Nami tiredly sighs when she feels that they're not making any progress in escaping. "What now?"

Zoro chuckles at the situation as he looks at his pose. "At least I get a good pose. I feel bad for you."

Vivi looks at her carefree friend in irritation. "This isn't funny!"

Rose groans at how everything's turning out as she keeps trying to use her wind while flying, but nothing's happening.

 _*Dammit, why isn't it working?!*_ She snaps out of her thoughts when she starts sniffling.

Ms. Valentine recovers from her fall, furiously gets out of the hole, and starts floating up behind her. As Rose tries to hold back her sneeze, she doesn't notice the blonde woman that's about to ax kick her to the ground. "I'll teach you to-"

"A-ah-ACHOO!" Rose couldn't hold back anymore and sneezes, which accidentally creates a gust of wind in front of her that blows out the candles! The sneeze also sends her flying backwards, into Ms. Valentine, and slams her into a tree!

The Baroque Works agent was knocked out from the blow, and changed back into her normal weight. The kilo woman quickly falls from her height, but safely lands into the large bush that Rose fell into.

Rose sighs in relief Ms. Valentine won't bug her anymore, as she wipes her nose with the back of her hand, and looks at the unlit candles. _*Of all the ways to put out the candles, I had to do it the Last Airbender way... At least it got the job done.*_

Nami, Vivi, Broggy and Zoro widen their eyes when they see that the candle mist is gone and try to look up, but they can't because the wax has trapped every part of their body except for their faces.

"What the?! Did that girl put the candles out?!" Nami asks as strains her eyes to look up at the scrawny girl, but she still can't see her.

Zoro tries to turn his head, but he can barely move an inch. "Looks that way, but we're still stuck here."

Usopp and Carue run back to the scene, and look in shock to see Nami, Vivi, Broggy and Zoro are almost completely turned into wax while Rose is stuck in the air.

The sniper groans when he sees Luffy struggling to not enjoy the tea Ms. Goldenweek has given him. "What do you think you're doing, you idiot?!"

Mr. 5 runs to the edge of the clearing with a rifle in his hand, then he breathes into the barrel of the gun to use as bullets. "Just one hit with my power, and you're through."

Usopp sees the paint on his captain's shirt, and aims his slingshot at Luffy. "This should snap you out of it! Fire bullet!"

Ms. Goldenweek watches in shock when Usopp fires his explosive at Luffy and sets him on fire.

Rose widens her eyes when she sees Mr. 5 about to fire his gun. _*Shit!*_

She tries to fly over to Usopp and Carue, but it's no good, so she takes a deep breath. When she releases her breath, she creates a gust of wind that blows towards Usopp and Carue, to push them a few feet away just before Mr. 5 fires his gun, and creates the explosions. _*Alright, I think I'm getting somewhere now!*_

Mr. 5 groans at the miss as he walks into the clearing and looks up at Rose. "Looks like Ms. Valentine couldn't take care of her after all."

Usopp widen his eyes at the explosion, that was where he and Carue were standing just a second ago, then stands up. "Whoa, that was close! You ok Carue?"

Carue nods causing him to nod, before he turns to Luffy who's lying on the ground shirtless. "Hey Luffy, you snapped out of it right?!"

Luffy nods as he stands up. "Yea, I'm completely awake now! That sign won't bother me anymore!"

"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?! WHY ARE THE CANDLES OUT?!" Everyone freezes to the sound of Mr. 3's voice when the candles light up again.

They all look to see Mr. 3 walking into the scene while wearing a giant suit of candle armor.

Usopp and Carue jump back in fear while Luffy tilts his head in confusion. "What's that?"

Mr. 5 turns his head to his comrade. "It's Mr. 3's best artwork that was used to kill a 42 million beli pirate. The Candle Champion."

Mr. 3 turns to Ms. Goldenweek, and grins at her. "Ms. Goldenweek, I need you to paint my armor. As long as it's cool it's fine. Afterwards, you can take a break since this will be all I need to kill them."

Ms. Goldenweek nods as she paints his armor while Rose takes a deep breath and blows the candles out again.

Mr. 3 twitches an eyebrow at the candles going out before he lights the candles again. "QUIT BLOWING OUT MY ARTWORK!"

Rose flips him off before she blows out the candles again. "NO WAY ASSHOLE!"

Mr. 3 grits his teeth in anger, but he lets the candles stay unlit after seeing that it's pointless, because of Rose's wind. Besides, he can take care of them easily now that Ms. Goldenweek finishes painting his armor. "Once I take care of Straw Hat, you're next brat!"

He turns to Luffy and gets in a stance. "Let's go Straw Hat! My armor is stronger than steel! I don't have any weak spots!"

Luffy looks at him with stars in his eyes. "Cool!"

Usopp widens his eyes at his captain's admiration for the armor. "DON'T ADMIRE HIM! FIGHT HIM!"

Rose chuckles at Mr. 3's threat while she casually flies over them. _*Can't wait to see Luffy kick his ass!*_

Luffy glares at the wax man as he pulls his arm back. "GUM GUM PISTOL!" He stretches his arm to punch Mr. 3, but the agent deflects his punch and pushes his arm to the side.

Luffy tries to pull his arm back while Mr. 3 runs up to him. "CHAMP PUNCH!" He slams his fists down, but Luffy jumps back to dodge while he finishes pulling back his arm.

Luffy jumps towards him, and kicks his stomach as hard as he could. "GUM GUM STAMP!"

Mr. 3 was pushed back but he barely felt the blow which causes him to chuckle as he and Luffy continue clashing.

Vivi widens her eyes at what she's seeing. "Luffy's really going head to head with Mr. 3..."

Zoro chuckles at the scuffle. "I give the art freak five minutes."

Nami sighs as she tries to move, but the wax is too strong. "The only question is how do we get out of here?"

Usopp looks away from the fight and stares at the giant candle in thought of how to free his crew mates. _*That mist stopped because the top candles weren't lit anymore. The mist was melted pieces of the wax, so...*_

He widens his eyes in realization of how to get rid of the wax. _*YOU CAN USE FIRE TO FREE THEM!*_

He grabs his slingshot and aims at the wax cake.

Rose looks down to sees Usopp about to fire, while Mr. 5 aims his gun that's full of his explosive breath at him. She tried to blow Usopp out of the way again, but her wind wasn't fast enough when Mr. 5 fired his gun and his explosions managed to hit Usopp.

Nami, Vivi, Zoro, and Luffy widen their eyes at the explosion. "USOPP!"

The smoke from the explosion clears up to see Usopp knocked to the ground with scorch marks all over his body.

Mr. 5 sighs at how stubborn everyone is being as he looks at Usopp with disappointment. "I hope you see now that you have no chance of winning."

Luffy glares at Mr. 5 while running to punch him. "YOU BASTARD!"

Before Luffy can punch him, Mr. 3 slams him to the ground. "Stop being stupid!"

Mr. 5 scoffs at Luffy's failed attack, before he sees Usopp giving Carue the end of a long rope that's coming out of his belt. "What are you doing now?"

Usopp widens his eyes at getting caught before he yells to the duck. "GO CARUE!"

Carue quacks in agreement before he makes a run for it with the rope trailing behind him.

Mr. 5 sighs in frustration before he loads his gun with his breath. "Whatever you're doing won't work you know?"

The duck ignores him and keeps running towards the wax cake. Before Mr. 5 could fire at Carue, Rose blows her wind to send him flying, and slams him against a tree. "Leave him alone, you booger bastard!"

Mr. 5 growls at the nickname before he fires his explosives at her which she deflects with her own breath.

Luffy escapes Mr. 3's hold, but Mr. 3 goes off to punch him. "Just give up and become my art!"

Luffy dodges his punches and jumps onto his arms. "You're not turning my friends into art!"

He jumps off of his arms to grab Mr. 3's hair, that's lit on top of it, then jumps to the ground. He ignores the wax man's whines about his hair being pulled as he runs to the wax statue. "Fire melts wax right? Your fire can do it then!"

Mr. 3 stumbles to follow Luffy so that his hair doesn't get pulled off him. "OUCH! QUIT PULLING MY HAIR!"

Usopp slowly stumbles up before he disconnects the rope from his belt. "Luffy, Carue is wrapping the wax with my rope! It's a special rope that's covered in oil! Light it on fire!"

Luffy looks at the wax to see Carue wrapping the rope all around the wax cake then he nods at the plan. "Got it! It's time to get you out guys!"

Mr. 3 widens his eyes in fear as Luffy pulls his hair towards the rope. "STOP! LET GO OF ME!"

Luffy lights the rope on fire, which causes the entire wax figure to go up in flames! Carue jumps off the wax just before he could get burned and joins Usopp to watch Mr. 3's creation melt away.

Mr. 3's wax body went up in flames and melts away the armor before he runs away from the fire. He pats himself to put himself out, and tears up when he sees that his art's completely ruined. "HOT! HOT! HOT! HOW COULD YOU DESTROY MY ART?!"

As soon as he puts himself out, he sees that Luffy's distracted from the fire, so he makes a run for it with Ms. Goldenweek.

Luffy and Carue turn around to see Mr. 3 and Ms. Goldenweek running, so they go after them.

"HEY! DON'T RUN AWAY FROM A FIGHT!" Luffy yells as he and Carue go into the jungle to pursue the Baroque Works agents.

Mr. 5 grits his teeth in fury of all their plans going up in smoke. "I'm going to kill you all!"

He aims his gun at Usopp, but before he could fire Vivi, and Nami jump out of the wax and send him flying backwards with their kicks.

Mr. 5 recovers, and glares at the girls as he picks his nose for a new bomb. "I'll take care of you first."

"Killing evil…" Mr. 5 looks up to follow Zoro's voice then flinches when he sees the swordsman's demonic stare. Zoro barely cares about the fear as he jumps off the wax with the flames following him. "FIRE SWORD!"

Zoro strikes Mr. 5 and sets him on fire for a moment before he falls unconscious.

The fire from the wax starts dying down, as Nami looks down to see that her shirt was completely burnt off, and leaves her in only her bra and mini skirt. "Aw man, my clothes. Couldn't you have gotten us out in an easier way Usopp?"

Usopp groans at the complaint as he gets up, and brushes himself off. "You should be grateful that we got you out of there before you turned into candles."

Nami nods as she grins in gratitude. "You're right, thanks."

Vivi looks down at her charred clothes in disbelief of how they only received mild burns. "I can't believe we managed. How are you Mr. Bushido?"

Zoro nods as he barely cares about the pain as he sheathes his swords.

The four friends continue to talk to one another while Rose remains unnoticed in her spot on her gust of wind. She doesn't care though, because she's too busy admiring the amazing people with a soft grin. _*So these guys are the real Straw Hats huh? They really are amazing.*_

She looks at the path Luffy and Carue went while remembering what she knows about Little Garden. _*I'm sure Luffy knocked Mr. 3 out by now. I'm not exactly sure if Carue knocked the kid out, but it looks like everything's going by the manga. That means she should be able to escape with Mr. 5 and Ms. Valentine...*_

She continues to ponder on it, until she and the others freeze to the sound of thumping. They all look to see Broggy's wax swords, that were holding him down, have melted away and he's getting up.

Zoro grins at the giant while he sits down. "So, you're happy to be alive?"

Broggy nods before he looks behind him to see that his old rival, Dorry, has been lying face down on the ground ever since the start of the fight. "Yea, I am…"

Usopp looks at the fallen giant softly before returning his attention to the blond giant. "Broggy..."

Luffy and Carue run into the clearing just when Broggy starts crying for his fellow giant. "WAAAH! I'M GONNA MISS YOU DORRY!"

Everyone cringes to Broggy's loud crying while the giant starts crying waterfalls.

Nami covers her ears to block out the noise. "Even his crying is energetic!"

Luffy widens his eyes at the large tears when he sees lights shining behind the salty water. "Whoa, you can see a rainbow!"

Usopp tears up for the mourning giant. "I completely understand Broggy!"

Rose looks at him softly while she tries to fly up to him, but she's stuck in place. "Don't cry Broggy! It's ok!"

"HOW IS IT OK WHEN MY FRIEND-!"

"Ugh, seems I passed out for a bit." Everyone, but Rose, freezes and turns in shock to see Dorry sitting up next to his fellow giant.

Broggy couldn't believe his eyes at the sight of his best friend alive and well. "DORRY, YOU'RE ALIVE?!"

Dorry nods as he looks down at their weapons. "Yea, I think it's most likely because of our weapons."

Usopp wipes his tears before looking at the giant, worn out, sword and axe. "That's right, you guys have been fighting for over a century! Those weapons had to have worn out."

Broggy pulls his friend into a hug while he cries tears of joy. "What a splendid day this is! I'm so happy you're alive Dorry!"

Dorry nods while he tears up and hugs his friend back. "Thank you friend."

Nami grins at the giants when she feels a sting on her stomach. "Ow."

Vivi looks at her in confusion. "Are you ok Nami?"

Nami nods as she looks down to see a red bug bite on her stomach. "Yea, it was just a bug bite."

The princess nods while Zoro looks up and notices the mysterious flying girl, who's been helping them, is still floating above them. He looks to his captain, that flew here with her, and tries to get some answers. "Hey Luffy, who's the girl you flew here with?"

Luffy freezes when he remembers his new friend and grins at him. "That's Rose!"

The others stop the happy reunion, and see smiling up at Rose while he waves his arms. "HEY ROSE, COME DOWN!"

Rose jolts at her name being called before she looks down to see everyone staring at her. She looks away from them, as she remembers her situation. _*Right, time to introduce myself. I'd better be careful with what I say or I'll sound crazy. How the hell do I get down from here though?!*_

She flails her arms and legs to try to get down from her gust of wind, but nothing happens.

Everyone else sweat drops at the brunette's actions before Luffy tilts his head in confusion. "Hey, what's the matter? Can't you come down?"

She stops flailing around, and shakes her head. "No, I've been stuck here since-! WHOA!"

Her wind finally fades away, and sends her free falling. Before the giants could catch her, Luffy stretches his arm around her small waist and pulls her to his side.

Rose lightly blushes at the embrace before she pulls herself away. "T-thanks."

Luffy nods while he and the others curiously stare at the brunette.

The otaku does the first thing that comes to mind, which is to politely bow to them to hide her nervousness in introducing herself to the famous pirates. "Hi there, my name's Catone Rose. It's nice to meet you guys."

The others blink at her politeness before Nami steps up. "I'm Nami, what exactly are you doing here?"

Rose straightens up and keeps up a smile. "I'm just passing through, I kind of landed here by accident today. I searched around to see if anyone was here, but I wound up getting chased by a T-Rex, and finding a devil fruit."

Usopp widens his eyes at the mention of her devil fruit. "Wait, you ate that devil fruit today?! What fruit was it anyway?!"

"It was the wind wind fruit. After I ate it, the T-Rex tried to eat me again, but I managed to fly away before he could take a bite out of me."

She remembers how the crazy arrival and points to the captain with a small frown. "That's when I flew into you guys, and when your captain thought it would be a fun idea to take a joy ride on me..."

Luffy laughs at the memory of flying with Rose. "Yea, and it was awesome!"

Vivi and Nami whack him on the head for his reckless attitude. "DON'T TAKE JOY RIDES ON PEOPLE!"

Vivi turns to Rose with an apologetic look on her face. "Thank you for helping us, and I deeply apologize for dragging you into our mess. My name's Vivi, and the duck is my friend Carue."

Rose grins while she waves dismissively. "Don't worry about it. I'm glad I could help."

Vivi starts smiling at her friendliness, but widens her eyes when she sees the bandages on Rose's arms, neck, and face. "What happened?"

Rose looks down at her bandages then chuckles. "You don't need to worry. It's just a few scratches and bruises that my foster family gave me as a parting gift before I ran away."

Zoro quirks an eyebrow at her story. "Ran away from where exactly?"

Rose loses her smile at the mention of her homeland before she rubs the back of her head, and avoids his gaze. "I'd rather not talk about the place if that's ok with you. At least not now."

Zoro nods at the request when Nami speaks up. "Where exactly are you going?"

Rose grins at the topic change and makes her request. "That's actually something I'd like to talk to you about. If it's ok with you, can I please get a ride to Alabasta? I don't have a boat and it's more fun travelling with people."

Everyone widens their eyes at the request, except for Luffy who's nodding with a toothy grin. "Sure, sounds like fun. What are you going there for?"

"For the stars."

Usopp tilts his head in confusion. "The stars?"

She eagerly nods as she points to the sky. "Yea, I heard that the starry nights are awesome in Alabasta. I'm looking to go there to study astronomy and research on comets."

Nami pulls Vivi to the side and starts whispering to her. "What do you think Vivi?"

Vivi nods before she whispers back. "It's true that Alabasta's night sky is perfect for astronomy. Father even has a royal astronomer in the palace. I know she's not in Crocodile's top numbers, still..."

She looks back at the innocent looking girl before she returns her attention to Nami. "We owe her for helping us, but we should keep an eye on her just to be safe."

Nami nods in agreement before she turns to Rose. "Ok, we can take you to Alabasta."

Rose brightens up at the agreement. "Thank you very-!" She cuts herself off when her wind starts picking her up again, and groans in frustration. "Really?!"

The others laugh at the sudden flight before Luffy stretches an arm around Rose's waist to keep her from floating too far.

Luffy keeps chuckling as he pulls her down next to him. "Shishishi, you're pretty funny. Oh yea!"

He points to Zoro and Usopp with his free arm. "The green haired guy's Zoro, the long nosed guy's Usopp, and-"

He blinks in surprise when he finds a crew member missing and looks around for him. "Hey, what happened to Sanji?"

The others blink at the question before they look around to find that the crew's chef hasn't been there this whole time.

"Haven't seen him since he left the ship." Usopp says.

Luffy nods at the answer. "I'm sure he'll come back soon."

He walks to the side with Rose, Usopp and Carue to eat some rice crackers while the giants start laughing.

"Gabababa! You little ones are great. Thanks for helping us out there." Broggy says.

Dorry happily relaxes as he remembers how they got in that situation. "Those agents were a shock, I completely forgot about that we had bounties."

Vivi looks at them sadly as she feels guilty for having them follow her here. "Even with your bounties, it's my fault that the Baroque Works agents came here..."

Nami pinches Vivi's cheek to get the sad look off her face. "That's enough of that."

Luffy nods as he eats a rice cracker with one hand while he keeps his other arm around Rose to keep her from flying off. "Want a rice cracker?"

Nami sweat drops at his, Usopp, Rose, and Carue's attitudes as they keep eating while she lets go of Vivi's cheek. "Why are you having a picnic now?"

The group shrugs as they keep eating.

Nami sighs before she smiles at Vivi. "See? No one blames you."

Vivi nods while softly smiling at her.

Zoro sighs in relaxation as he takes a seat. "How long do we have to wait until the log pose is ready?"

Nami widens her eyes when she remembers what the giants have told her before she looks at her log pose. "That's right, the log pose won't be set for another year."

Luffy turns to the giants. "Can't you guys do anything about it?"

Dorry shakes his head at the suggestion. "Even we can't speed up the logs."

"NAMI-SWAAN! VIVI-CHWAAN!" The group freezes and turns to see a blonde man with curly eyebrows, and wearing a suit, noodle dancing to the group. "I'M SO GLAD YOU LADIES ARE SAFE!"

Luffy waves to Sanji with a toothy grin. "There you are Sanji!"

Usopp groans at his late arrival. "He shows up AFTER the fight?!"

Rose widens her eyes at Sanji's behavior. _*Sanji really does act nuts around girls!*_

She suddenly drops to the ground, and gets Luffy's arm off of her, before she sees Sanji staring at her with wide eyes.

"Is it just me or are the beautiful ladies multiplying?!"

Rose steps back in shock of the compliment before Sanji suddenly kneels in front of her with a red rose in his hand. "Never in my wildest dreams would I imagine finding an Amazon goddess here. My name's Sanji, and what do I have the pleasure of calling you?"

Rose keeps a nervous grin up while she waves at the flirting chef. "H-hi, I'm Rose." _*Does he keep a supply of flowers in his suit or something?!*_

Sanji looks up at her with hearts in his eyes. "A most fitting name for a beautiful flower such as yourself. Beautiful on the outside while strong on the-!"

He cuts himself off when he sees Dorry behind her, so he goes in between them. "Who the hell are you?! Are you Mr. 3?!"

Nami widens her eyes at the name. "How do you know about Mr. 3?"

Sanji turns to her before widening his eyes, when he sees her almost topless. "Nami-swaan! You're as beautiful as always!"

Nami twitches an eyebrow in irritation, but before she can hit him, Sanji takes his blazer off and wraps it around her shoulders. "This should keep you warm, dear Nami. As for your question, I impersonated Mr. 3 when I spoke to Mr. 0 on a den den mushi."

Vivi widens her eyes at the mention of Baroque Works' leader. "You spoke to Mr. 0?!"

He nods as he lights his cigarette and starts smoking. "Yea, he mistook me for Mr. 3, so I told him that we were all dead."

Nami widens her eyes at this. "Really?!"

Sanji nods to confirm it, so Usopp quickly tears up in joy. "Yes, we don't have to live in fear anymore! If only we can leave here!"

Sanji tilts his head in confusion as he digs into his pocket to grab an eternal pose to Alabasta. "Do we still have business here? Just when I got us this too."

Everyone, but Rose, are completely slack jawed that Sanji has an eternal pose which makes him sweat drop. "What's with you guys?"

The crew snaps out of it before they start cheering in victory.

Luffy jumps in excitement. "ALRIGHT, WE CAN SET SAIL AGAIN!"

Vivi runs up to the chef and hugs him. "Thank you so much Sanji!"

Sanji's eyes turn into hearts as a huge smile spreads across his face. "Y-you're welcome Vivi-chwan!"

Luffy grabs the last of the rice crackers. "Alright, let's party!"

Usopp sweat drops at the announcement. "It can't be a party with just one rice cracker."

Nami sighs at their carefree attitudes. "This isn't the time for that. Let's get out of here."

Zoro nods before he smirks at Sanji, since he remembers that he has a hunting game with him. "That's right, I caught a huge dinosaur."

Sanji glares at Zoro as he gently pulls away from the hug, and leaves to get his catch. "I also caught one that's bigger than yours."

"We'll see." The two pirates run off to grab the dinosaurs that they killed while Luffy waves at the giants.

"We're gonna head out now! See ya!"

Usopp grins in excitement as he waves at them. "I'LL BE SURE TO GO TO ELBAF ONE DAY!"

Broggy nods as he waves them off. "I hope to see you there."

Dorry waves at them with a large grin. "I hope your country is safe Vivi."

Vivi nods while she waves back and walks with the crew. "Thank you."

Rose turns to Vivi while they head to the ship. "What's the matter with your country?"

Vivi blinks at the question before she looks at her nervously. "Well you see, I'm the princess of Alabasta. I'm afraid you want to come into my country when a civil war is about to break out. In order to prevent it, I need to return home as soon as possible."

Rose nods in understanding of the situation. "In that case, can I help? I know my abilities aren't much now, but with some practice I think I can be useful."

Vivi widens her eyes at the offer. "You don't have to do that. I don't want to drag you into anymore conflict."

She shakes her head. "You don't need to worry about that. Since I'm thinking of staying in your country, it's only right that I help out."

Vivi blinks in surprise at her attitude before she grins at her. "That would be great, thank you."

"No problem." She stops when the group arrives at the Merry then smiles at the ship. _*This is going to be one hell of an experience.*_

She climbs onto the ship along with the others, except for Zoro and Sanji, who are dragging a dead T-Rex and triceratops to the coastline. She sweat drops when she sees the two dinosaurs that she saw fighting earlier today, and is glad she made the right call to leave the ship.

Sanji glares at Zoro as he points to the T-Rex he killed. "My kill is way larger!"

"Are you blind?! My animal is way bigger than yours!"

Luffy leans against the railing and looks at the dinosaurs with hunger in his eyes. "Who cares? They both look tasty."

Zoro and Sanji glare at him. "YOU STAY OUT OF THIS!"

Zoro turns to Usopp. "Mine's clearly bigger right?!"

"I don't care..."

Vivi looks at them nervously. "Isn't it ok to have a tie?"

Zoro shakes his head. "There's no tie in a contest!"

Rose's wind picks her up without permission again, so she decides to take advantage of it by looking over the dinosaurs. "I'll take a look."

Sanji looks up at her with a smile on his face. "Rose-chan, you can see my catch is bigger right?!"

Zoro glares at him. "No way, she can tell mine's bigger!"

Rose sighs when she sees that both dinosaurs look like they're the same size. "It's hard to tell. I think the T-Rex is meatier though."

Zoro groans at the comparison while Sanji smirks in victory. "See?! Mine's bigger moss head."

"You wish ero-cook! What your animal has in meat mine makes up in muscle!"

"I can cook more without muscle!"

Nami sighs at their arguing as she walks onto the deck, in a yellow short sleeved shirt. "Will you two quit fighting?! We can't carry that much meat anyway! Just pack up what we need, and let's go!"

Sanji nods with hearts in his eyes. "As you wish Nami-swaan!"

The chef packs up as much of the T-Rex meat as he can, while Luffy pulls Rose onto the deck just before the ship begins to leave the island.

Luffy grins when he looks back at the island to see Dorry and Broggy walking up to the coast. "Hey look guys! The giants came to see us off!"

The giants make it to the cove with their weapons in hand.

"As thanks for saving us we're going to make sure that you get off the island!" Broggy says.

Dorry nods in agreement as he clutches his sword. "No matter what, keep sailing forward!"

The crew looks at them in confusion while Luffy nods. "Got it! Guys, let's sail straight!"

The others nod as they sail forward when a giant sea king emerges from the water in front of them. The crew looks at it in utter shock while the giants smirk.

"So you've come, Island Devourer." Dorry says.

Broggy keeps his smirk as he grips his sword. "In the name of Elbaf, we'll clear a path for our friends!"

Nami looks at the monster in shock before she turns to Usopp. "USOPP, TURN US AROUND!"

Usopp shakes his head at the command. "No, we need to trust the giants. Sail straight right Luffy?"

Luffy nods in agreement. "Yea, keep going straight!"

"HE'S GONNA SWALLOW US!" Nami yells, but neither of them refuse to back down.

Zoro sighs in defeat as he hangs onto the railing. "Just give it up."

Sanji quickly turns to Luffy when the fish gets closer to them. "Are you sure we can trust this guy Luffy?!"

Luffy nods while Rose chuckles when she sees the fish opening his mouth to swallow them. "Relax, we'll be out in a minute."

Vivi turns to the nonchalant girl in utter shock. "HOW ARE YOU CALM?!"

Rose shrugs when the goldfish swallowed the ship, but the giants swung their weapons with so much force that it created a hole in the giant fish and sent the ship flying!

"WHOA! WE'RE FLYING!" Luffy yells in excitement as the giants yell to them.

"DON'T TURN BACK! SAIL STRAIGHT AHEAD!"

Usopp turns to them while waving at them with tears of joy streaming down his face. "THANK YOU!"

The ship safely landed in the water and sailed away while Little Garden continued growing further away.

Rose looks at the departing island with a smile as she puts a hand in her pocket. When she reaches in them, she pauses when she feels the quarter she got from the kid for street performing inside. She holds onto it for a moment before she leaves it in her pocket. _*Huh, I didn't know I still had that. Hehe, nice to have a souvenir from that world.*_

She gently touches her crystal necklace with a soft grin as she looks back at the island she arrived in. _*So, the next stop is Drum Island. I can't wait to meet Chopper!*_

"HEY ROSE, COME PLAY WITH US!" She turns around to Luffy's voice to see him waving at her along with Usopp and Carue.

Rose smiles at the invitation, before she joins in their games while secretly excited for what her next island journey will bring her.

TO BE CONTINUED


	3. Chapter 3

After Little Garden was well out of the crew's sights, Luffy, Rose, Usopp, and Carue were busy playing around on the deck. The only thing that could stop them was Sanji walking out of the kitchen with a large smile after he finished cooking. "Rose-chwan, lunch is ready!"

He loses his smile as he scowls at the boys. "Come and get your food too, shitheads."

Luffy didn't need to be told twice as he dashes into the kitchen and leaves the others in the dust. The others follow him inside to see Sanji placing the most delicious food Rose has ever seen on the table, that the rest of the crew is seated in. Rose couldn't take her purple eyes off the meal as she takes a seat in between Vivi and Nami.

Nami sees Rose staring at the plate in front of her, then smiles, and pats her on the back. "You can relax; it's not going to go any-!"

The navigator cuts herself off when she sees Luffy stretching his hand from across the table to swipe some of Rose's food, but before she can say anything, Rose grabs her fork and stabs his hand!

"Ow!" Luffy pulls his hand back from the plate causing the group to look at Rose in shock.

The wind girl completely ignores everyone's stares as points her fork at the captain with a smirk decorating her face. "Sorry Luffy, but I've lived with two professional food pickers for seven years. You gotta do better than that if you want a piece of my lunch."

The others laughed at the declaration before everyone began to eat.

As soon as the wind girl takes the first bite, she almost melts in happiness of tasting something so amazing. She wastes no time in digging in, and does her best to not waste a single crumb.

Luffy continues eating his meal while trying to swipe some of Rose's food again, but she blocks his hands every time with a fork in one hand while she continues to eat with the other by using another fork.

The others watched with interest as Rose managed to keep up with Luffy's hands throughout the entire meal.

"Wow, I've never seen someone able to keep up with Luffy before." Vivi says as she keeps her eyes on the dishes.

Sanji nods as he watches the food picking war. "She's really impressive."

Carue nods in agreement as Rose and Luffy continue their food battle.

Rose took the last bite of her lunch, before Luffy could take a piece, then chuckled in amusement. "I told you I'm not a beginner. Better luck next time."

Luffy nods to the challenge with a small smirk. "Got it."

Zoro sweat drops at the agreement between the two kids. _*Did she just declare a food picking war with Luffy?*_

Usopp chuckles at the show as he keeps eating. "Looks like you need to practice more Luffy."

He brings his fork down to get the last of his food, but the utensil only met with the plate, because Luffy swiped the last of his lunch. "LUFFY!"

The captain swallows the last of his food before he wilts his head in confusion. "What? You told me to practice more."

"NOT WITH MY FOOD!"

The rest of the group laughs at the squabble before they get back to their lunch. Once everyone was done, they placed their dishes in the sink before they left except for Sanji and Rose.

Rose walked up to the sink, where Sanji was about to do the dishes, with a friendly smile. "Thanks for the food Sanji. Mind if I help out with the dishes?"

Sanji freezes at the offer before he quickly shakes his head. "There's no need for you to do that. You're a guest here."

"Exactly, since you guys are giving me a ride it's only fair that I pull my weight somehow. Besides, it's faster if we work together." The brunette says as she shows no signs of leaving.

He blinks in surprise of her determination before he nods and rolls up his sleeves. "Ok, if you want to help that badly, then you can dry the dishes."

Rose nods as she grabs a rag and starts wiping down the dishes that Sanji just washed.

The chef glances over at her while he's cleaning, and sees that she's quickly, yet thoroughly, drying the plates before she piles them on the counter. "You seem used to this kind of job Rose-chan."

She nods as she keeps her focus on the dishes. "Before I went to Little Garden, I used to work at a small restaurant. I didn't cook, but I handled the customers and clean up duty. What about you? Those cooking skills are way too impressive to be self taught."

Sanji grins at the compliment as he looks back to his job. "You're too kind. Before I joined the crew, I worked at a restaurant in East Blue called the Baratie."

She grins at the restaurant name and acts like she doesn't know all about the business. "I've heard of that place. Is it true that the restaurant can actually float in the water, and can move around on its own?"

He chuckles at her enthusiasm before he nods. "Yes it can, I can tell you about the place if you want."

"That would be great!"

After ten minutes of helping with the dishes, and listening to Sanji's stories, Rose laughs at hearing about his experience with Fullbody while she dries the last plate. "Hahaha, did Zeff really kick that marine jerk out after you kicked the shit out of him?!"

The blond nods with a prideful smirk as he dries his hands. "Yea, that's what he gets for wasting food like that."

She nods in agreement. "Serves him right!" She goes to grab some of the dishes, to put them away, but Sanji swipes them before she could touch them.

"Go on Rose, I'll take care of the rest. Thank you for the help."

"My pleasure, thanks for letting me help." She walks out of the kitchen, but only takes a few steps before Nami and Vivi walk up to her.

"There you are, after all the excitement, we forgot to show you around the ship." Nami says.

Rose nods at the suggestion. "Sounds like fun." She follows the two girls inside, and goes through each room below deck. When they reach the end of the hall, they open a door to reveal the girls' room that holds two beds, a bookshelf, a desk, and a few large closets.

Nami walks inside the bedroom and goes into her closet. "You'll be sleeping here with us. We have a small futon you can use, so it won't be an issue."

Rose nods as she sees Nami pull out the rolled up futon, then helps her spread it in between the two beds. They make sure that there's enough space to give everyone access to them before Rose grins at her host. "Thanks Nami."

"No problem."

Vivi goes into her bag and grabs her first aid kit. "While you're here, we should get those bandages changed too."

Rose looks down at the bandages on her arms, that were slightly torn and dirty from going through Little Garden. She know that it's the right call, to avoid an infection, so she reaches out for the kit. "Thanks, I can take care of them."

Vivi hands her the first aid kit then watches Rose sit on the futon, and start unwrapping all the old bandages that were on her arms, neck, and cheek.

Vivi and Nami widen their eyes at all the old and new scratches and bruises on her skin, but remain silent while she treats her wounds. With those kind of marks, both of them have a hard time in doubting her story about her running away from an abusive situation.

Rose, doesn't notice the stares, because she's concentrating on her treatment. After applying new ointment on her marks, she leaves her cheek and neck without bandages, but wraps new bandages on her arms to cover the re-opened scratches.

Once Rose was finished, she closed up the first aid kit and mutters to herself. "Looks like everything's healing nicely. One more day with the bandages for my arms, and then I'll let them finish healing on their own."

She looks to see Nami and Vivi are still staring at her, so she knits her eyebrows in confusion. "You two ok?"

They both snap out of it, so Vivi puts on a nervous smile while she waves her hand dismissively. "Y-yea, we're fine!" _*She really got all those scratches and bruises from her foster family?! How can they do that to someone they were supposed to be looking after?!*_

Nami nods then looks at Rose's half black, half red crystal, that's hanging from her neck, and changes the topic. "Yea, we're just curious about your necklace. What kind of gem is it?"

Rose looks down at her necklace then holds it up. "To be honest, I'm not sure myself. My parents gave me this back when I was ten, but they never told me what it was..."

She widens her eyes when she remembers that this necklace is the only item with a chance that it could've helped her come here!

She she stares at the crystal intensely while she wonders if this gem really did have something to do with her arrival. _*It's not impossible for certain gems to be able to have special properties. Did this really-?!*_

She snapped out of her thoughts when Vivi placed a hand on her shoulder. "Are you ok?"

Rose nods with a relaxed grin, and decides to look into this when she's settled in Alabasta. "Yea, sorry about that. I just spaced out."

Nami walks up to Rose and extends a hand to help her up. "You only brought the clothes on your back right? I can lend you some of mine if you want."

"That would be great, thanks." Rose goes to take Nami's hand, but before she can grab it, her wind starts acting up, and sends her flying up until she hits her head on the ceiling! The wind suddenly fades away right afterwards, and leaves her to belly flop onto the futon.

Rose groans she rubs her head and gets up. _*Ow, that hurt… I really gotta work on this power.*_

Vivi widens her eyes at the sudden flight. "Are you ok?!"

Rose starts smiling while she shrugs it off. "Yea, I'm fine. The futon broke my fall."

Nami sighs in exasperation of another weird power to deal with. "It looks like that power's doing you more harm than good. What were you thinking when you ate that devil fruit, anyway?"

The brunette keeps a carefree smile on her face as she lifts three of her fingers to them. "Three things: One, I hadn't eaten anything yet. Two, I'm not a good swimmer, so there wouldn't be much of a loss no matter what power I got. And three, I would hopefully get an awesome superpower. Looks like I was right with number three. I just gotta practice and then I'll get the hang of it."

Vivi blinks in surprise at her optimistic attitude, and feels like she's talking to another pirate.

Nami accepts the answer, and goes into her closet to grab a light blue, long sleeved, v-neck and dark purple jeans. "You have a point. If you can create large gusts of wind, then maybe you can help us move the ship faster."

Rose crosses her arms over her chest in thought. "I can try, but we should wait until I have more control of my abilities."

The navigator nods before she hands her the clothes. "Good idea, we'll leave you alone to change. Once you're done, come join everyone on the deck."

Rose keeps a small smile on as she waves them off, and watches them close the door behind them. Once she's alone, she quietly sighs and looks at her bandages. _*I guess seeing all the marks made them nervous. At least they'll fade, so they should stop worrying soon.*_

She takes the this alone time to bring the quarter out of her pocket, and stares at it curiously. _*I'm kind of surprised this made the journey with me. Kind of cool to have a good luck charm like this. I'd better keep it on me for now.*_

She places the coin in her new pants pocket then starts changing while Nami and Vivi walk down the hall.

Vivi looks back at the girls' room with a soft look on her face before she turns back to Nami. "You noticed all those scratches and bruises on her too right?"

Nami nods with a small frown on her face. "Yea, and from the way she was treating them, she's used to getting them too…" She shakes her head then keeps her focus on the doorway to the deck. "I don't think she'd want us to feel sorry for her. Right now we should focus on getting everyone to Alabasta."

Vivi nods as she follows the navigator up to the deck to set the course to Alabasta with the eternal pose.

Once Rose has finished changing, she walks out to the deck, and heads to the back of the ship to train. She sees Zoro training with a large weight, so she stays out of his way and looks out to the ocean in thought. _*Ok, first thing I gotta do is learn how to fly when I want to... How to do that is the real question.*_

She gets an idea, and takes a deep breath before she blows her wind to the deck to lift herself up a few feet into the air. When she released her breath though, she immediately fell back to the deck. She repeats the technique while she flails her arms, but it ends with the same result every time she released her breath.

Luffy, Usopp and Carue walk over to the back deck, and sweat drop when they see her repeatedly trying to fly by blowing air to the deck while she flails her arms.

"What are you doing?" Luffy asks.

Rose lands on the deck again while she catches her breath, then turns to the guys. "I'm trying to practice my devil fruit ability, but it's not working."

Usopp nods before he strokes his chin. "Hmm, what exactly were you doing when you were flying for the first time? Maybe remembering what it felt like could help you channel your abilities."

Rose tilts her head at the suggestion before she crosses her arms over her chest. "That's a good idea, but I was running from a dinosaur at the time. Kind of hard to reenact that."

Luffy tilts his head in thought. "What if we chase you?"

Usopp shakes his head at the suggestion. "Two guys and a duck can't compare to a man eating dinosaur Luffy."

Rose ponders on the idea before she nods. "Actually, that might work. If I'm being chased, then maybe I can trigger my abilities like when I was chased by the dinosaur. What do you two say; think you're up for a game of tag?"

Carue nods as he gets ready to charge her while Usopp smiles. "I'm in! Back in my hometown I raised an army of hawks and taught them how to fly! Helping you learn how to fly will be a cinch!"

Luffy laughs before getting ready to run. "Let's get started!"

Rose nods with a smirk. "Alright, whoever gets me flying is the winner. Let's go!" She makes a run for it to the front of the ship, with all three guys in pursuit, while Zoro continues training as if they were never there.

Nami and Vivi stop navigating for a moment to see the four of them running around the deck.

"So they're trying to force her abilities out?" Vivi asks when she sees Rose jumping out of the way to dodge Luffy and try flying, but she immediately lands before the guys continue the chase.

Nami shakes her head before she gets back to the eternal pose. "Of all the ways to try... As long as they don't break anything, it should be ok."

Vivi nods as she goes back to helping Nami with the eternal pose, while the chase continues between Rose and the guys.

Rose jumps to the side to dodge Carue from charging at her from behind, but lands only to dodge Usopp when he tries to tag her. She keeps running when she sees Usopp and Carue charging at her from opposite directions. She managed to jump back to dodge, and makes them to crash into each other, Her wind almost picked her up when she jumped, but it faded away immediately.

Rose can't help but chuckle at the progress, as she continues to run while she dodges Usopp and Carue's attempts to catch her. However, as she keeps running, she starts to realize that there's supposed to be another guy trying. _*Wait, where's Lu-?!*_

"GUM GUM ROCKET!" She stopped and turned around to see that Luffy used the mast to slingshot himself towards her!

She braced herself for impact, but it never came because he went straight through her, and flew over the railing.

Rose widens her eyes in shock when she sees Luffy falling towards the water. "Oh shit, Luffy!"

Zoro froze and dropped the weight before he rushes to the railing along with Nami, Vivi and the others, but everyone stops when they hear Luffy laughing.

Everyone looks over the railing to see Luffy floating on a gust of wind, a foot above the water, with a toothy grin and is waving up at the others. "Shishishi, this is the coolest thing ever! I didn't know you could make others fly Rose!"

Rose can only blink as she stares at the sight. "Neither did I… Let me try to get you back up."

She focuses on the gust of wind that's keeping Luffy up, and manages to bring him over the railing before it drops him on the deck.

Luffy gets up then starts pouting at the loss of flight. "Aww, why did you put me down?"

Nami whacks him on the head. "You should be happy she caught you before you fell in!"

Usopp shakes his head before he pats Rose on the back. "Forget him, great job using your wind."

She gives him a small grin before she looks at her hand. "Thanks, I think I'm getting somewhere with this now."

Luffy grins before he raises his fists in the air. "Since I got you to use your power that means I won right?"

A playful smirk grew on Rose's face as she shook her head. "I believe the rule was whoever got _me_ flying was the winner. I didn't say anything about getting others flying."

"What?! Then I'll get you flying right now!" Luffy restarted the chase while Rose was laughing her ass off as she ran away from him.

Usopp widens his eyes at the new chase before he joins in. "DON'T COUNT ME OUT!"

Carue quacked in agreement as he joined in the game.

While the chase continued on, Zoro sweat dropped at the view. "Are they trying to train her or play around?"

Nami sighs before she sits down by the railing. "As long as it helps her get more control of her devil fruit then it doesn't matter."

Zoro huffs before he goes back to his training.

Nami turns to Vivi, then hands her the eternal pose. "Can you keep an eye on the pose for a minute? I think the exhaustion from the island caught up to me."

Vivi looks at the pose then looks at Nami to see that her face is a little flushed. "It's fine, why don't you go take a nap? I'll let you know if anything happens."

Nami nods as she gets up and starts walking, but before she makes it to the door, she suddenly collapses!

"Nami!"

Rose and the guys freeze at Vivi's voice then rush over to Nami's unconscious body.

Vivi feels her forehead then widens her eyes in horror. "She has a fever!"

"WHAT?!" Sanji runs out of the kitchen to see Nami lying on the deck. He quickly picks her up bridal style and brings her inside with everyone following, except for Zoro who's keeping watch over the ship.

Rose runs to the bathroom to grab a rag, and dampens it with cold water, before she goes into the girls' room to see Sanji tucking Nami into bed. She gently places the wet rag on Nami's forehead then steps back, along with the guys, while Vivi grabs a thermometer from her first aid kit.

Vivi makes sure the rag stays on Nami's forehead then places the thermometer in her mouth. "Thank you Rose."

Rose nods but stays silent as she sadly stares at Nami. _*Dammit, I completely forgot about the bug bite! I know it's supposed to bring the crew to Drum Island, but this still sucks… If I say anything about the bug bite it'll just lead everyone into a panic…*_

She stays quiet, while Sanji tears up as he grabs a handkerchief, from his suit's breast pocket, and bites it in anticipation. "What happened to Nami-san, Vivi?!"

Vivi quietly sighs as she looks over Nami. "I'm not sure; I think she got sick from the sudden climate change. It could be deadly if the symptoms are left unchecked. Does anyone on the ship have any medical knowledge?"

Luffy and Usopp point to Nami, so Vivi looks at them in disbelief. "Are you serious?! What about you Rose?!"

She slowly shakes her head before she looks to the redhead. "Sorry, I don't know how to treat her illness."

Luffy nods before he turns to Sanji. "She should be ok if she eats something good, right Sanji?"

Sanji looks over Nami with a soft look on his face. "Well, I can make her meals that are easy enough for her to digest, but that's only nursing. It can't actually cure her illness. Since I don't know what her exact illness is either, I don't know what meal would be best for her..."

Vivi takes the thermometer out of Nami's mouth then widens her eyes. "This is bad, her fever's rising!"

Usopp steps up frantically. "There are doctors that can help her in Alabasta right?!"

Vivi nods. "There are, but we won't be able to get there for at least a week! We can't let her deal with this for that long!"

Luffy looks at the others in confusion. "Is it that painful to be sick?"

Usopp and Sanji tilt their heads in confusion while they speak simultaneously. "I don't know, I never got sick before."

Vivi looks at the boys in shock. "Are you three even human?! Of course it's painful! Fevers like hers are worse than normal diseases too! This could put her life at risk!"

The guys immediately widen their eyes at this before they start panicking.

Usopp and Carue run around the room in a frenzy while Luffy looks at Vivi in shock. "IS SHE GOING TO DIE?!"

Sanji cries comical tears while he shouts. "WAAH! PLEASE DON'T DIE NAMI!"

Rose twitches an eyebrow in irritation of the noise, before she whacks all the guys on the head. "FUCKING KNOCK IT OFF!"

The guys rub the growing lumps on their heads while Rose crosses her arms over her chest. "Panicking won't help Nami! Look, we just need to bring her to a doctor, and she'll be fine."

Vivi nods in agreement. "We can detour to another island and find her a doctor."

"No..." Everyone freezes at Nami's weak voice, and turns to the navigator to see her take the rag off her head as she sits up.

Luffy starts smiling in relief. "Alright, she got better!"

Usopp whacks him on the head. "No she didn't!"

Nami ignores the guys and points to her desk. "Take a look at the newspaper in the top drawer of my desk."

Vivi goes into the drawer to grab the newspaper then freezes when she reads the front page of the paper. "W-what?!"

Sanji walks up to her. "What happened? Is it about Alabasta?"

She slowly nods as she keeps her eyes on the paper. "This isn't right… 300 thousand soldiers from the royal army have switched sides and joined the rebels… There were originally 600 thousand in the army against 400 thousand rebels, but now the situation completely switched."

Nami nods as she stays in bed. "That paper was from three days again. Sorry for not telling you sooner, I didn't want your worries to get worse. We need to get to Alabasta as fast as we can, understand Luffy?"

Luffy nods with a small frown. "Yea, this sounds pretty bad."

Usopp looks at them in shock before he looks at Nami worriedly. "I know the situation's bad, but if your fever's rising then you need a doctor Nami."

She shakes her head with a smile, as she swings her legs off the bed, then gets up. "It's ok; I'm a little better now. I think it was just a heat stroke. I'll be fine without a doctor."

She starts walking to the door then stops to smile at the guys. "In any case, thanks for worrying about me."

The others watch her walk out the door while Luffy tilts his head in confusion. "She's all better now?"

Usopp shakes his head. "Of course not, she's just putting up a tough front."

Vivi keeps her attention on the newspaper while she clenches it so tightly that the paper's starting to rip. "It's not enough to just go to Alabasta anymore. If I can't get there in time, then a million of my people will be killing each other for no reason!"

Luffy widened his eyes in shock. "A million?!"

Sanji looks at her softly. "That's quite the burden."

Rose walks up to her and pats her on the shoulder. "With the eternal pose, we have no problem getting there right? Then there's no need to worry."

Vivi blinks in surprise at her calming grin, before she lets go of the paper, and slowly nods. "Right, then let's-!"

"HEY, EVERYONE! WE GOT A PROBLEM, COME OUT HERE!"

Everyone freezes at Zoro's voice then run out to the deck to see him on the upper deck with Nami.

Zoro doesn't move from his spot as he looks down at the others. "We need to take the helm and steer the ship south!"

Sanji twitches a curly eyebrow at the command. "Why should I take orders from you moss head?!"

"Just shut up and do it! We gotta lower the sails, so we can catch wind from the port side!"

"Got it!" Usopp and Luffy call out as they go to lower the sails.

Sanji heads to the helm then turns to Nami, who's looking out into the ocean. "Why the sudden change in course Nami-san?"

She quietly pants while she keeps her brown eyes on the horizon. "I have a bad feeling in the air. I think there's a storm coming up ahead."

After Luffy lowers the sails, he walks up to Nami, and pats her forehead, then immediately recoils it. "OW! Hot! Hot! We need to bring you to a doctor right now!"

"That's just my normal temperature Luffy!"

Rose tiredly sighs then walks over to them. "The redness on your face is your normal skin tone then?"

"It's just from being in the sun too long!"

Sanji looks over Nami worriedly. "Nami, I know you want to help Vivi, but you shouldn't push yourself too hard."

"I told you I'm fine!"

Usopp looks over them nervously. "Nami, I think you should-!"

"JUST SHUT UP AND TURN THE SHIP AROUND! I'M FINE DAMMIT!"

The others rush to turn the ship around until they start heading south.

Vivi goes to the upper deck then looks at Nami for a brief moment before she turns to the others. "Guys, I'd like to talk to you if that's alright."

Everyone shifts their attention to the princess as she continues. "I know it's not my place to make requests since you allowed me on the boat, but with the emerging crisis in Alabasta, I need to go there as soon as possible."

Nami pulls on a weak smile while she nods. "Of course, we'll get you there just like we promised."

The others stayed quiet when Vivi spoke up. "I'd like us to go there as soon as possible, which is why we need to find a doctor for Nami immediately. Once Nami gets better, we'll head straight to Alabasta. That's the fastest way for us to make it there right?"

Luffy nods with a toothy grin. "Yea, can't get much faster than that!"

Usopp quirks an eyebrow at Vivi's decision. "Are you sure? Aren't you worried about the million people in Alabasta?"

"Of course, that's why we need to get Nami to a doctor as soon as possible. You're alright with this too right Rose?"

Rose nods with a grin. "Not a problem, I think this is faster too."

Vivi nods before she walks over to Nami. "I'm sorry for making you worry, but please don't overexert yourself."

Nami slowly nods. "Sorry about this Vivi…" She started to collapse but Vivi caught her, and wrapped an arm around her shoulders to keep her up.

Before anyone can say anything, Luffy looked out onto the horizon and widened his eyes at the sight. "WHOA, WHAT'S THAT?!"

Everyone looked out in shock to see a giant hurricane passing the place where the crew was moments ago.

Rose couldn't take her eyes off the storm that they almost sailed into. _*Wow, storms really do pop up out of nowhere on the Grand Line!*_

Usopp widens his eyes at the direction of the storm. "Wasn't that where we were heading?!"

Sanji slowly nods as he keeps his eyes on the hurricane. "That's exactly where we were heading a minute ago. Talk about a close call."

Vivi looks at Nami in shock as she keeps her arms around her to keep her up. _*Incredible, storms on the Grand Line are unpredictable, but she managed to sense the storm coming.*_

Luffy snaps out of it first before he smiles at the crew. "Alright, let's set sail to find Nami a doctor!"

"YEA!" The crew continues heading south to find a doctor while Vivi leads Nami back to her room.

Rose watches the girls head inside then goes to the back of the ship while she comes up with her next move. _*Ok, if we're going by the manga then we should be in the Drum Island arc by tomorrow. If I can at least master getting others to fly, then I can help Nami get to Dr. Kureha's castle faster.*_

She grins at the plan, then looks around for something to practice with, then finds a small wooden crate. When she looks inside the crate, she finds that it's empty and grins in satisfaction. "This can work."

She focuses on the box until the wind starts picking it up for a second, but it quickly drops it. She groans in frustration then accidentally uses her wind to pick the crate up again, and throw it towards the stairs where Zoro was! "Watch out Zoro!"

The box managed to hit him in the face before he could react in time, but before he lost his balance Rose rushed over to him, and grabbed him by the arm to stop him from falling. "You ok?!"

He nods while he rubs his aching face. "What the hell are you doing now?!"

She points to the cracked crate, that's by their feet. "I'm trying to get used to making other things fly. I was using the box to practice, but I accidentally threw it without thinking. I'm sorry about that."

He looks down at the box in confusion "Seriously? You can't make yourself fly, but you're trying to make others fly?"

She furrows her eyebrows at the question as she crosses her arms over her chest. "Yea, so what? Being able to get others flying is more useful, especially in a fight."

He quirks an eyebrow at the mindset. "Have you ever even been in a fight?"

She shrugs at the question. "I've been in plenty of fist fights, sword fights though not so much."

Zoro blinks in surprise at the answer, before he picks up the crate. He ignores the confused girl as he puts the box down a few feet away from her, then takes a few steps back. "In that case, think of the crate as your opponent. Imagine how you want to use your wind to send it flying then do it."

Rose widens her eyes at the idea before she nods, and gets in a stance. She focuses on the box, until she manages to lift it a few feet into the air with her wind, then she throws a punch towards the direction of the box to create a gust of wind to send it flying!

Before the box could fall into the water, she managed to catch it with another gust of wind then placed it back on the deck with a happy smile. "Whoa, I did it!"

Zoro nods in approval then chuckles. "Looks like your power can be useful after all."

She scowls at his snarkiness as she gets her arms ready to try again. "Shut the hell up, I'm just getting started! At this rate I'll control my wind in no time."

He smirks at the confidence before he points towards her feet. "In that case, you better get started on getting control of your own flying."

She freezes, then looks down to see that she's flying a foot into the air, and then face palms. "Oh come on!"

She rakes a hand through her bangs while she groans. "At least I'm not skyrocketing again..."

"Hey Rose, you're flying again?! Make me fly too!" She and Zoro turn to Luffy's voice to see him waving at them from the front of the ship.

Rose nods as she waves back. "I'll be there in a bit."

She turns to Zoro and bows her head. "I'm sorry again for throwing the box at you, and thank you for helping me practice. I can help you out with your training later if you want."

He shakes his head as he grabs his weight and starts lifting it. "I can train on my own. You should worry more about yourself before you fly off the ship."

She nods as she grabs the railing while the wind lifts her feet up to make it look like she's doing a handstand on the railing. She acts like this is normal as she pulls along the railing to to go towards the front of the boat. "The offer's open if you change your mind."

He sweat drops at her pulling the railing to move to the other side of the ship, before he gets back to lifting his weights. _*Looks like we picked up another weird one...*_

Rose focused on pulling herself along the railing until Luffy stretched his arm around her waist and pulled her to him, Usopp and Carue.

She lightly blushes at the embrace when her wind puts her down, and pulls herself away. "T-thanks, so you want to go flying again?"

Luffy nods, along with Usopp and Carue, and causes Rose to quirk an eyebrow at the duck. "Wait, can't you fly on your own Carue?"

He shakes his head, only for her to sweat drop before she shrugs. "Sure, why not? Just promise not to get mad if I accidentally drop or throw you."

Luffy and Carue nod while Usopp takes a step back. "On second thought, I think I'll just watch."

Rose nods as she takes a step back then starts focusing. _*Ok, so imagine what I want to do with my wind then do it.*_

She raises her hand up causing a gust of wind to start lifting Luffy and Carue off the deck.

Stars start forming in Luffy's eyes as he's floating into the air. "This is so cool!"

He tries to move around on his own, but the wind won't let him go anywhere. "Hey, why can't I move?"

Rose giggles as she moves her arm, so that they move around in a circle. "Sorry, it's my wind that's lifting you up, so I'm the only one who can move you around."

Luffy blinks in surprise before he pouts. "Aww, no fair."

She and Usopp laugh at his pouting when the door to the kitchen opens to Sanji. "Dinner's ready guys."

Rose accidentally broke her concentration and threw Luffy and Carue at Sanji, and has the three of them to crash into the kitchen! "Shit!"

Rose and Usopp rush into the kitchen to see the three of them groaning, as they get up and rub their aching heads.

"Are you guys ok?!" Usopp asks.

The guys nod while Rose looks at them nervously. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to do that."

Luffy laughs while he shakes his head. "Don't be, that was fun! Can you make me fly ag-?!"

He was cut off by a roundhouse kick to the head courtesy of Sanji. "Don't give her flight requests!"

The blonde turns to Rose with hearts in his eyes. "I don't mind people flying at me if you're the one that's flying Rose-chan."

Usopp sweat drops at the chef's declaration. "Didn't you sort of give her a flight request?"

Rose chuckles as she grabs her dish. "That's ok Sanji, if you don't mind I'm gonna eat with the girls."

Sanji grabs a tray that's holding Vivi's dish, and Nami's bowl of soup, and grins at the wind girl. "Of course, hopefully this special soup will help Nami's fever go down too."

Rose nods as she opens the door for the blonde chef. She follows him below the deck to eat with Nami and Vivi, while Sanji reluctantly goes back to the kitchen to take care of the guys for the rest of the meal.

* * *

After the girls finished eating, Vivi grabbed the tray from Nami's lap so she can lay down in her bed. "How was the soup Nami?"

Nami softly smiles as she gets herself comfortable. "It was great. What about you guys?"

"It was really good." Rose says as she grabs the plates. "I'll go get rid of these."

Vivi nods as she places a new rag on Nami's forehead. "Thank you."

"No problem." She heads out of the room and out to the deck. Once she's outside though, she freezes and looks up in awe of the night sky that's filled with more stars than she's ever seen in her life!

She couldn't wipe the huge smile from her face, as she almost tears up, from the beautiful sight that she never found in her home world due to light pollution. _*Oh my god, if this is a dream don't ever wake me up!*_

She snaps out of her thoughts to Carue's quacking then turns to see him staring at her with a worried look on his face.

Rose chuckles before she softly smiles at him. "I'm fine Carue, just enjoying the view."

The duck nods before he goes off to play with the others. She quickly makes her way to the kitchen and puts the plates in the sink.

"How's Nami feeling?" Sanji asks as he's washing the dishes.

She grabs a rag and starts wiping down the plates "She's ok, she enjoyed the soup you made."

"I'm glad she liked it, but you don't need to help Rose-chan, I can take care of it."

Rose nods as she puts the rag down then starts heading out. "Thanks Sanji."

She quickly goes outside and rushes to the railing to stare at the stars while she ignores Usopp, Luffy and Carue's game of tag. _*Wow, this is amazing! I wonder if the constellations are the same in this world.*_

Luffy stops playing when he sees Rose staring at the sky, then walks up behind her. "Whatcha doing?"

She jumps in surprise then turns to him. "Oh hey, I'm just looking for constellations."

He tilts his head in confusion. "What are 'constipations'?"

Rose starts trembling from holding back from laughing before she points to the sky. "N-not constipations, 'constellations'. They're a group of stars that create a pattern in the sky."

Luffy widens his eyes at this before he looks up at the millions of stars above them. "Stars can do that?"

She nods as she continues her search for a constellation. "Yea but not only that, there are also ones that have a story behind how they're made."

"Really? Like what?"

The brunette grins at the question as she keeps her head to the sky. "Like the story of Hercules. He's a demigod who fought through twelve difficult labors, which include battling giant monsters, in order to atone for his sins. After he passed the trials, he became renowned as one of the greatest heroes of all time. Years later when he died his father, Zeus, the king of the gods, immortalized his son's accomplishments by creating the Hercules constellation."

Usopp and Carue froze, after overhearing the story, then they rushed over to her.

"Are you serious?! What kind of monsters did this hero fight against?" Usopp asks.

Rose grins at their excitement as she takes a seat on the railing. "I'll tell you right now."

* * *

Vivi changes the rag on Nami's forehead, then takes the thermometer from the red head's mouth. _*Her fever isn't going down… I hope we find a doctor soon.*_

Nami starts coughing then sits up while Vivi pats her back. "Take it easy Nami. Here, drink this." She hands her a glass of water which she finishes in one gulp.

"Thanks-!" She freezes then looks around the room worriedly.

Vivi looks to the worried navigator in confusion. "What's the matter?"

"It's too quiet outside! Something must be wrong with the idiots!" She starts lifting herself off the bed, but Vivi gently pushes her down.

"You shouldn't move around Nami. I'll go see what they're up to, so please stay here."

Nami reluctantly nods as she stays in bed while Vivi goes up to the deck.

The princess looks around, then freezes when she sees Rose sitting on the railing and telling the three guys, who are sitting in front of her, of Hercules' second labor.

"And that's when he sliced off the hydra's head, but every time he managed to cut off one of his heads two more grew in its place. In order to kill the monster once and for all, he and his nephew Iolaus worked together. Hercules would slice off all the heads while Iolaus used a torch to burn the nubs so that no more could grow back. Once the heads weren't able to grow back, the hydra was declared dead and the trial was completed."

Luffy looks at her with stars in his eyes. "Whoa, that's awesome!"

Usopp snickers as he crosses his arms over his chest. "That's nothing; I took down two sea kings at the same time, when I was a kid, with nothing but a kitchen knife!"

Luffy turns to him in shock. "Really?!"

Rose grins at the lie. "That's something I'd like to see. How'd you pull that off?"

Usopp shakes his head with a smirk. "Oh no, you finish your story then I'll tell you mine."

"Got it, after killing the hydra Hercules went off to the next labor, which was to capture the Ceryneian Hind. This is a stag with golden horns that's well known for its incredible speed."

Vivi blinks in surprise at the storytelling before she goes back to the girls' room.

"Well?" Nami asks.

"Believe it or not, Rose is managing to keep Usopp, Luffy, and Carue quiet by telling them a story about someone named Hercules."

Nami blinks in surprise before she places a hand on her forehead. "I must be getting delirious from this fever. I just heard Luffy and quiet in the same sentence, and it wasn't to tell him to shut up."

Vivi laughs at the statement before she gets ready for bed. "I'm surprised myself. We should take advantage of the peace and get some sleep."

Nami nods as she settles into bed, and quickly falls asleep with Vivi following suit in her own bed.

* * *

After Rose finished her story, the group listened to Usopp's story of how he took down two sea kings simultaneously with a kitchen knife until they started laughing.

Rose claps as she finishes laughing. "That was an awesome story Usopp. Thanks for telling it."

Usopp nods with a smile. "Always a pleasure to tell an eager fan of my accomplishments. Your story was really fun too. I didn't know stars could tell stories like that."

"Yea, they can tell a lot of awesome stories. I know eighty seven others, but there might be more out there. I can tell you guys another one tomorrow if you want."

Usopp nods as he and the other guys get up. "Sounds good, I don't know about you guys, but I'm beat. Good night."

"Good night." Rose waves Usopp and Carue off as they head inside, but Luffy takes a seat next to her on the railing.

Rose raises an eyebrow at the company as she watches him get comfortable. "You're not heading to bed yet?"

He shakes his head. "Nah, I'm not tired yet. Besides, I want to find Hercules."

The brunette blinks in surprise before she nods with a smile. "Alright, let's see if we can-!"

She cuts herself off when she starts floating away again, until Luffy wraps an arm around her waist to pull her back by his side, while her wind still keeps her afloat. "Hey, it's not fair to fly off by yourself."

Her freckled face light blushes at the embrace before she looks up. "It's not like I'm flying on purpose..."

Luffy tilts his head at the sudden flush on her face. "Are you ok? Wait, you're not getting Nami's fever are you?!"

She quickly shakes her head while keeps her focus on the sky. "I'm not sick, my face just gets like this sometimes! Let's just find Hercules." _*Dammit, I hate getting so embarrassed from a hug!*_

He blinks in confusion before he shrugs and joins her in the search for the constellation. He looks around, then points to a random star in the sky with his free hand. "Is that it?"

She shakes her head. "Nope, that's not him."

After the twentieth time pointing to a random star Luffy groans in frustration. "Man, this is hard. How do you normally find them?"

The wind girl shrugs to the question as she looks to him. "To tell you the truth, I've only seen it a few times in my life. Not a lot of stars come out in my hometown, so when I was a kid my parents would take me on trips to places where a lot of stars can be seen. We would then find the constellations with the help of a star chart. It's pretty hard to find something like Hercules on your own."

He starts to understand, but he's started to grow curious about the girl in his arm. "Why do you like stars so much?"

She softly grins as she stares at the sky. "I've always thought they were beautiful, they kinda give me something to look forward to. Both my parents being astronomy professors definitely helped. Still, this is the first time seeing this many out at once. It's really awesome."

He nods. "Yea, it's cool. Hey, why don't we fly up there for a closer look?"

She chuckles before she shakes her head. "I think it's best to wait until I don't have to worry about accidentally throwing you. When I get a little more control of my wind, then we can get a closer look, deal?"

"Yosh!"

Rose finally manages to land on the railing, so she pulls away from Luffy's embrace, and gets off the railing. "We should head to bed now, we got a long day ahead of us tomorrow."

"Right, tomorrow we'll find Nami a doctor. Good night!" He heads inside while Rose waves him off.

Before she heads inside, she looks up at the sky once more while she touches her necklace. _*I can't believe only one day passed in this world. If all of this can happen, then I'm even more excited for Drum Island!*_

She couldn't stop the smile that has spread onto her freckled face as she rushed inside to get some sleep while she eagerly waited for their arrival to Drum Island.

TO BE CONTINUED


	4. Chapter 4

The following morning, the crew woke up shivering to the sudden coldness in the air. Most of the guys, except Luffy, waste no time in bundling themselves up to get warm. Vivi allowed Rose to borrow a dark green winter jacket, and a pair of dark grey gloves to stay warm, while the two of them stayed in the girls' room to keep Nami company.

Rose places a new damp rag on Nami's head while she's sleeping and sadly looks down at the sick pirate. _*Man, aren't we in the Drum Island arc yet?*_

Vivi sighs in frustration of how no matter what they're trying, Nami's not getting better. "It looks like her fever is only rising…"

Rose nods at the assumption before she gives the princess a reassuring grin. "Yea, but the next island's doctors will cure her in no time."

"What makes you so sure?"

"You can call it a feeling. I just wish we were there already…" Rose mutters the last part to herself, but Vivi clearly heard her.

Vivi smiles at the wind girl's worries before she pats her shoulder. "Nami's pretty strong, I'm sure she'll pull through until we reach the island. If it makes you feel better, you helped her out a lot last night."

She tilts her head at the news. "I did?"

"Absolutely, when you were telling the boys that Hercules story Nami was able to quickly relax and fall asleep."

Rose blinks in surprise at the comment, because she didn't know she overheard them, before she sheepishly smiles. "I see, I'm happy to hear that. Hey if you don't mind my asking, what's Alabasta like?"

Vivi is taken aback by the change in conversation, but is happy to answer as she grins at the thought of her homeland. "It's a beautiful island with a rich history. My father, King Cobra, always tries his best to care for his people. It's a desert island so it's warm during the day, but really cold at night."

The astronomer nods to the explanation, as if she doesn't know it already, and eagerly looks for more information. "So is it true that Alabasta's night sky's great for astronomy?"

The Alabastian nods to the question. "Yes, it's true. Alabasta rarely has cloudy weather, so it's perfect for astronomy. My father even has a royal astronomer working in the palace. When everything becomes peaceful again, I can introduce you to him if you want."

Rose widens her purple eyes at the offer before she shows off a large smile. "Really?! That would be amazing, thank you!" _*This is perfect, I can find out how the Timore comet's viewed in this world!*_

The princess softly grins at the future immigrant's enthusiasm. "My pleasure, since you're planning on staying on the island I hope you can come visit me as well."

"Of course."

Both girls turn to the sound of the door opening to see Carue walking in, while Sanji follows with a tray that's carrying three mugs. "Here you go ladies. This should help keep you warm."

He hands Rose and Vivi a mug of tea before he places the tray on the nightstand.

"Thanks Sanji." Rose says before she starts drinking.

Sanji grins at the gratitude before he turns his attention to the sleeping navigator. "Has Nami's fever gone down yet?"

Vivi shakes her head. "Sorry, it hasn't gotten any better. Is there any sign of an island yet?"

He quietly sighs in disappointment. "Not-!" He cuts himself off when the ship starts shaking.

Vivi widens her eyes at the sudden tremor, as she puts the mug down, and holds onto the bed for support. "What's going on?!"

Sanji grabs onto the other bed for support before he calls up to the deck. "Hey guys, get control of the helm! If anything happens to Nami, I'll kick your asses!"

Rose struggles to keeps her balance in her seat, while she starts thinking of what this could mean. _*Did Wapol arrive?!*_

She puts the mug down on the nightstand before she gets up, and runs to the door!

"Where are you going?!" Vivi asks.

"If we're getting into a fight, then I'm joining in!" Rose runs out of the room before they could ask anything else.

Sanji widens his eyes at the fleeing brunette before he turns to Vivi. "I'll leave Nami to you Vivi."

He follows Rose out until they reach the deck, then they both freeze when they see a large pirate ship in front of them. They look around to see a small army of soldiers, wearing winter jackets, on the deck with their rifles pointed at them.

Sanji sighs at the annoying intruders before he lights his cigarette. "What exactly is going on?"

Luffy turns to them nonchalantly while he ignores the guns that are pointed at him. "We were ambushed."

He groans at the obvious news as he starts smoking. "Great, this is the last thing we need right now."

Rose looks around to see the soldiers also having Zoro and Usopp surrounded at gunpoint. With no doubt in her mind, she knows that these are Drum Island Soldiers, and is more than eager to kick their asses with the others. All that's needed is to see where the leader is.

"Hmm, looks like there's five in total. There's no way that this is the entire crew. Oh well, guess it doesn't matter."

Speak of the devil, everyone turns to see a short, fat, man, with dark blue hair, and a cylinder shaped chin made of tin standing by the railing. He barely cares about the attention as he eats a piece of meat off a dagger. Once he finished the meat, he chomps down on the knife as if it's part of the meal.

Rose looks at the metal eating man in disgust. _*Ew, Wapol really does eat anything he can get his hands on...*_

Luffy widens his eyes in shock of the view of the weapon eater. "What the hell?! He just ate the whole knife!"

Zoro was speechless at the display while Usopp sticks his tongue out in disdain. "Ugh, it hurts just looking at it!"

Wapol ignores the complaints, and finishes eating the dagger, before he smirks at the crew. "We wish to go to Drum Island. Do you have an eternal pose or even a log pose on you?"

Sanji crosses his arms over his chest while he gives him a scowl. "No we don't, and we've never heard of the place."

Luffy nods while he glares at Wapol. "If you're done asking questions, then hurry up and go away."

Wapol waves his hand dismissively. "Hey now, there's no need to rush through life like that. If you don't have it, then I might as well take everything else instead."

Everyone in the crew widens their eyes at his announcement. "What?!"

"But before that, I'm feeling a bit famished." Wapol puts his mouth around the end of the railing to get ready to bite.

Usopp looks at the item eater in utter shock. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!"

Before Wapol could bite down on the railing, he was picked up by a gust of wind, suddenly flipped and pile driven onto the deck!

Rose glares at him as he rubs his head and gets up. _*Wapol's devil fruit gives Kirby's powers a bad name. I could send him flying now, but this guy deserves to get his ass kicked by Luffy.*_

Wapol groans at his aching head then looks around in confusion. "What the hell just happened?!"

The guards look around in confusion while Wapol looks at the anchor rope on the deck. He quickly shrugs off what happened, and starts eating the rope as if it's spaghetti. "Oh well, guess it was a fluke."

Luffy grows angry at the intruder's rudeness, and starts yelling. "HEY, QUIT TRYING TO EAT THE SHIP!"

One of the soldiers closest to Luffy holds the gun up to his head. "Don't bother his highness in the middle of his meal!"

"Shut up!" The captain punches the guard in the face which raises the surrounding guards alert up.

"He's resisting, get him!"

The battle between Luffy and the soldiers starts off, so Usopp quickly hides behind the mast to dodge the gunfire.

Zoro, Sanji and Rose however, smirk at the challenge as they join the fray.

Sanji throws his cigarette to the water as he jumps above the crowd. "So we can kick their asses now?! Don't worry Rose-chan, I'll protect you!" Once he lands in the crowd, he starts kicking them left and right before they could fire at him.

Rose twitches an eyebrow at the chivalry as the soldiers start bull rushing her, but she dodges them one by one before she uses her wind to send them flying into each other. "The last thing I need is protection in a fight!"

Some of the soldiers try to shoot her but she jumps to the side to dodge. When a soldier tries to bull rush her from behind, she back kicks him in the face, then blasts wind out her foot to send him flying into his comrades. When more soldiers charged at her, she continued punching them left and right while creating wind blasts to send them flying.

Zoro unsheathes his blades and begins slashing through the crowd. "We should've done this from the beginning!"

One of the soldiers in the back, widens his eyes at the fight, before he turns to his boss. "Sir, these pirates are-!"

He cuts himself off when he sees Wapol about to take a bite on the railing again.

Luffy glares at him as he keeps fighting through the crowd to get to him. "QUIT TRYING TO EAT THE SHIP!"

Before Wapol could bite the railing, Rose uses her wind to flip and pile drive him onto the deck again.

"WHY DID IT HAPPEN AGAIN?!"

The soldiers surrounding Rose widen their eyes at what she did. "So you're the one that pile drove our king!"

Rose chuckles as she keeps her stance up. "Like I'd let the ass muncher do what he wants."

The guards glare at her as they continue their fight, while Luffy punches out the last guard keeping him from Wapol. "Get off my ship before I throw you out!"

The guards that Luffy had just beaten up look at him in shock.

"That idiot thinks he can fight his majesty?!"

"He's gonna be eaten alive by his majesty's munch munch powers!"

Wapol turns to Luffy with his mouth completely wide open and stuffs Luffy's entire body in his mouth, except for his arms that have stretched back far off the ship.

Usopp looks at the man that's trying to eat his captain in utter shock. "What the hell's wrong with you?!"

After all the soldiers were defeated, Zoro, Sanji and Rose watched Luffy's arms pulling back when Vivi ran out to the deck.

Sanji casually turns to the princess while he smokes a new cigarette. "Oh hey Vivi. How's Nami?"

Vivi slowly looks around to find the defeated soldiers everywhere. "She's… What's going on here?!"

Rose points to Wapol nonchalantly as if the scene is normal. "Luffy's about to kick a fake king's ass."

Wapol keeps trying to chew Luffy, but he's having a hard time due to his rubber body. "Ugh, this guy's tough to chew…"

Luffy groans in frustration as he pushed his arms forward. "Why you…"

He used his arms to punch him in the gut to make Wapol spit the rubber man out, and send him flying off the ship! "GET OFF MY SHIP!"

Vivi, and the sodiers, widen their eyes in shock when she sees Wapol sent flying far enough for him to no longer be seen!

"YOUR MAJESTY!" The soldiers immediately get on their ship and sail away to the direction of where their boss flew in hopes of saving him from drowning.

Sanji groans at the stupid event as he puffs out a smoke from his cigarette. "What a bunch of idiots."

Luffy gets up and wipes the drool off of him. "Ew, that guy was gross!"

Usopp nods in agreement. "I can't believe he tried to eat you along with the railing. Thanks for pile driving him before he can damage the ship Rose."

Rose grins at the gratitude. "My pleasure, how's Nami doing Vivi?"

"I'm gonna go back to check on her right now." She heads back inside while the others continue to sail South.

Rose heads back inside to check on Nami, and sees Carue and Vivi tending to her while she's sleeping. _*Ok, since we're officially in the arc now, we should be at the island either today or tomorrow.*_

Luffy and Sanji walk into the room and go up to the red head's bedside.

"Good thing those assholes didn't wake her. We gotta do something about that fever though." Sanji says as he grabs the mugs from the nightstand.

Luffy looks at the feverish girl in thought, before he comes up with an idea. "What if we pour a bucket of cold water on her to bring it down?"

"Don't be stupid!" Vivi and Sanji hit him in the gut to send him flying, but before he hits the wall, Rose catches him with her wind.

"Let's let them take care of her Luffy." Rose walks out while she uses her wind to take Luffy with her.

With no one else to distract the, Sanji and Vivi work on making sure Nami's comfortable.

The chef sighs in frustration as he looks outside to see that it's getting dark. "It looks like the sun's going down."

Vivi looks out the window to see that's getting darker by the minute. "It's too dangerous for us to travel at night without Nami's navigation skills. We should drop anchor for the night."

"Good idea." Sanji heads outside and sees that it's snowing before he goes off to drop the anchor.

When Rose placed Luffy down onto the deck, he looked at the falling snow in excitement. "Awesome, it's snowing!"

Rose grins at the weather change, before she sees Luffy gathering up the snow that's sticking to the deck. "What are you doing?"

"Making a snowman." He creates a shabby looking snowman with some sticks, and whatever else was lying around. "What do you think?"

Before Rose can say anything, Usopp starts snickering. "If you wanted a real snowman, you should have come to me. Take a look at this beauty."

Rose and Luffy turn to Usopp to see that he made a snowman, that looks exactly like one of the Drum Island soldiers.

Rose widens her eyes at the snowman before she applauds him. "Wow, that's really good. How did you make it so quick?"

Usopp smirks at the compliment while he gives them a thumbs up. "Something like this is easy for me. Sure beats that snowman over there."

Luffy furrows his eyebrows at the insult before he goes behind his own snowman. "Oh yea, well my snowman can do this!"

He pushes one of the sticks off his snowman from behind to send it flying, and break off the upper half of Usopp's snowman.

The sniper widens his eyes at his dead snowman before he makes a snowball. "WHY YOU JERK! TAKE THIS!" He throws his snowball at the snowman, which knocks his head clean off.

"HEY, THIS MEANS WAR!" Luffy yells as he and Usopp begin chucking snowballs at each other like there's no tomorrow while Rose watches from the railing.

She giggles at the display before she starts heading to the back of the ship to get some devil fruit training done.

She reaches the steps, but stops when a snowball hits the back of her head from one of Luffy's stray shots. She wipes the snow off her brown hair, before she twitches an eyebrow, and gathers up a group of snowballs while she mutters under her breath. "Time for some target practice…"

She lifts the snowballs into the air with her wind then starts throwing them at the boys!

Both guys freeze and widen their eyes at the flying snowballs heading towards them before they run away, but the snowballs manage to pelt them from behind.

Rose smirks in satisfaction until both guys glare at her with an arsenal of snowballs ready. _*Shit, now I've done it…*_

She rushes to get a snowball ready when Usopp and Luffy start throwing their snowballs at her. She jumps to the side to dodge when the wind starts picking her up a few feet into the air. "Oh, come on! Again?!"

Luffy laughs at her sudden flight when Usopp looks at her in confusion "I thought you got your powers under control now."

"I got making others flying under control for the most part, but that doesn't mean I've mastered my devil fruit yet. I still gotta practice more." Rose says as she flails her limbs around to try to get down, but it's not doing a thing.

Luffy nods as he pulls his arm back. "Just hang tight for a sec and I'll get you down."

Rose stops at the offer before she raises her hands up. "No wait, let's continue the snowball fight like this! I can practice moving around when flying!"

Usopp quirks an eyebrow at the idea. "Are you sure about that? You can't make snowballs up there you know?"

She nods with a smirk on her face. "Don't you worry about that. I got a really fun idea on how to fight back." _*At least fun for me.*_

Usopp gulps at the smirk while Luffy picks up a snowball. "Alright, let's see what you got!"

He immediately throws the snowball at her, but she couldn't move out of the way so she took the hit.

Usopp sweat drops at the failed attempt, and starts to think that she's bluffing, so he makes a snowball. "Alright, prepare to face captain Usopp's snowball of death!"

He throws the snowball at her, but she manages to shift to the right to dodge. Before the snowball lands, she uses her wind to catch the snowball and ricochet it back to Usopp. "Prepare to face my counter blow!"

Usopp jumps back to avoid the hit, then glares up at her. "HEY, USING SOMEONE ELSE'S SNOWBALL IS CHEATING!"

She smirks at the accusations before she playfully bows to him. "All's fair in love and war my long nosed friend. If you don't like it, then come at me with all you got!"

The sniper blinks at the challenge before he nods with a smirk. "If that's how you're gonna play, then I'm not holding back! Same goes to you Luffy!" He throws a snowball at Luffy, who didn't see it coming, before he throws one back at him.

Zoro sees the snowball fight going on from the back of the ship, before he ignores them, and gets back to his weights.

After Sanji lowered the anchor, he glares at the guys. "If any of you hurt Rose-chan, I'm kicking your asses!"

He went to the kitchen to finish up dinner while the three of them ignored Sanji's warning, and continued throwing snowballs at each other like there's no tomorrow.

* * *

Hours after dinner was finished, Sanji went up to the crow's nest for night watch while everyone else was getting ready for bed.

After brushing her teeth, Rose goes into the girls' room then is taken aback by the sight of Zoro and Carue sleeping on the floor. She looks around for the princess, and finds her sitting next to Nami's bed as she rests her head on the bed.

She quietly puts her jacket on Vivi's bed, then goes to her futon, when Luffy and Usopp walk inside with their blankets. She quirks an eyebrow at the intrusion before she starts whispering to them. "What are you guys doing?"

"We're gonna keep Nami company." Luffy says before Usopp covers his mouth.

"Not so loud!" Usopp loudly whispers before he turns to Rose. "Since her fever didn't go down today, we thought it'd be better to keep her company."

Rose blinks at their concern for their friend before she softly grins and gets up. "That's sweet, you guys can use the futon if you want."

Usopp quickly shakes his head. "You don't need to do that. We can rough it."

She nods as she bundles up on the futon while Luffy and Usopp fall asleep on the floor.

Rose looks around at the sleeping crew, while she keeps up her soft smile, and gets lost in thought. _*This crew really is something else. I don't remember having this much fun in years. Would be great if I could stay-!*_

She widens her eyes at the thought before she shakes her head to get rid of it and remember her place.

She sadly stares at the crew as she reminds herself of what she's supposed to be doing. * _I can't let myself get too comfortable. After all, I'm not supposed to be here. After I help Vivi and find out how the comet's viewed in this world I'm staying behind. Still, with the World Government being who they are, I wouldn't put it past them to make it a taboo. If that's the case, how should I deal with-?*_

She snaps out of it when she sees Nami stirring, then quickly lays down with her back to everyone to pretend to be asleep.

Nami sits up in the bed then looks around the room to see everyone sleeping in the room to keep her company.

 _*These guys…*_ She softly smiles at everyone before she pulls the blankets over herself in order to fall back asleep.

Rose looks over her shoulder to see the redhead sleeping again and quietly sighs in relief. _*No point in worrying about it now. I should get some sleep too.*_

She pulls the blanket over her head and drifts off to sleep.

* * *

 _In the middle of the night, in an empty classroom at New York University, Joe was doing research on his computer after his night class ended when his wife and nine year old daughter walked into the room._

 _"You ready to go home hon?" Teresa asks while Joe grins at them._

 _"Yea, I think I got as much as I can get for one night."_ _He turns off his laptop, and_ _rubs his eyes from under his small rectangular glasses to get rid of the fatigue. No matter how tired he is though, he can't help but be satisfied with the progress that he and his wife have made towards their research._ _"We're so close now that I can almost taste it."_

 _Rose grins in excitement as she walks up to her dad. "That's awesome, I can't wait to get out of this world."_

 _Joe chuckles at his child's enthusiasm as he puts his laptop in his case, then picks Rose up to set her on his lap. "I know you can't. We only need to find out how to use the comet's energy, and then wait for it to come to this world to test our theory."_

 _Teresa nods at the plan as she walks up to them. "Before we go any further though, we should set some ground rules for when we do leave."_

 _Rose tilts her head at the suggestion. "Like what?"_

 _"Like what to do when we first arrive."_

 _Joe quickly agrees as he looks down at his daughter. "It's only a few things. First, we can't tell anyone where we came from."_

 _Rose widens her purple eyes at the rule. "What?! Why not?!"_

 _"Depending on the type of world we're in, the locals will either call us crazy like this one does or they might even call us monsters."_

 _Rose could only stare at her parents, with fear of the possibility, when Teresa spoke up. "That also means we need to watch what we say as well. When we make it to a new world, we need to find out how the comet is viewed. Depending on how it's seen, we might be able to tell others that we're from here, but if it's seen as something bad then we need to be careful."_

 _Rose slowly nods before her dad ruffles her brown hair to calm her down. "Don't be upset, we might not have to keep it a secret forever. Who knows, maybe when the time's right, we can tell people who we are. In any case, wherever we go will be-!"_

 _"Are you people done yet? I can't go home until I lock up."_

 _Everyone freezes and turns to the tall, muscular, man, wearing a security guard uniform, holding a_ _scowl on his tan face_ _._

 _Rose gets off of Joe's lap, while he picks up his laptop case, then turns to the guard. "Sorry Rick, you know how it is. We'll head out now."_

 _Rose's future foster father clicks his tongue as he moves back to give them an opening. "Just take your kid and get going. I have my own daughters to get home to, you know?"_

 _Teresa takes Rose's hand and walks out of the classroom with her husband before she turns to him. "Sorry about that, you should bring your kids here sometime. I'm sure they'd like to see the place."_

 _"We'll see."_

 _The family starts walking away when Rick mutters under his breath. "We'll see when you two get fired. No way I'm letting Marie and Laura get brainwashed with this other world shit like that kid. I feel sorry for the brat already."_

 _Rose widens her eyes at what she heard, and tightens her grip on her mom's hand to hold herself back from confronting him. She keeps her head down to hide her irritation as they leave the building and head off campus._

 _"Like I told you Rose, the words only hurt if you let them."_

 _Rose looks up at her mother, who slightly tightened her grip around her daughter's hand, and calms down. "You're right."_

 _She loosens her hold on her mom's hand then looks up at her father. "Hey dad, what did you mean when you said 'when the time's right'? When would be a good time to tell people who we are?"_

 _Joe chuckles at the question as he hails a taxi to bring them home. "Where's the fun in giving you the answer? You have to figure it out on your own."_

 _Rose widens her eyes at the dodged answer, then pouts when a taxi arrives. "Oh, come on! That's not fair!"_

 _Joe and Teresa laugh at their daughter's pouting as they all get in the cab, with Rose trying to get the answer from her father for the rest of the ride home._

* * *

Rose slowly wakes up, from the pleasant dream, and sits up to see Vivi, Luffy, and Zoro keeping Nami company. She rubs the sleep off her purple eyes, then gets up, and walks up to the bed. "Morning guys."

Luffy turns to Rose and waves with a toothy grin. "Morning Rose."

Vivi places a damps rag on Nami's head before she turns to her. "Good morning, did you sleep well?"

"Yea, I had a good dream." She gets her jacket on while smiling from the happy memory she had of her family. She knows that it's best to follow the guideline that her family taught her especially with the world she wound up in, so she plans to keep a low profile. When she finds out how the Timore comet's viewed, she'll play it by ear to make sure she survives.

For now though, she's going to enjoy her day by heading outside. "I'm gonna see if we reached an island yet."

The others nod as she heads outside to see Usopp and Carue shoveling the snow, while Sanji is in the crow's nest in search of an island.

Rose grabs a snow shovel, that's leaning on the wall, then helps out with the snow, which causes Usopp and Carue to notice her.

"Oh hey Rose, when did you get up?" Usopp asks.

"Just now, what about you guys?"

"About ten minutes ago. Luckily, that weird pirate ship didn't come back."

"Agreed, I'll go shovel the back of the ship." She heads to the back while Usopp gets back to shoveling his side along with Carue, who's helping by holding the shovel with his beak.

Usopp thinks back on the pirate attack yesterday, and looks up to the crow's nest curiously. "You know Sanji, there was something that didn't add up yesterday."

Sanji quirks an eyebrow at the comment, and looks down at him. "What do you mean?"

"About the pirates that came by yesterday. I definitely never heard of a pirate named Wapol, but he had a ship that no nameless pirate could get."

Sanji clicks his tongue at the reminder of yesterday's fight before he lights up his cigarette. "Don't pay him any mind. Those guys were just a bunch of morons. More importantly, don't you think it's been pretty cold for a while now?"

Usopp tosses a shovel full of snow into the ocean before he nods. "You're right, I guess it's another phenomenon on the Grand Line."

"No, this is proof that we're reaching an island." The guys turn to Vivi's voice to see her walking out onto the deck and heading to the railing. "Sanji, watch out for land on the horizon."

"You got it Vivi-chan." Sanji uses his binoculars to look out for an island while Vivi looks at the light snowfall.

"With how cold it's been, we must be heading to a winter island."

Usopp looks at her in confusion before he dumps more snow into the water. "Winter island?"

The princess turns to him and gives him a waves her hand toward the snowfall. "Yes, in terms of climate on the Grand Line there are four types of islands: winter island, spring island, summer island and an autumn island. These islands also have their own types of four seasons. In order to survive on the Grand Line, you have to be able to endure all sixteen types of seasons, from the summers on a summer island to the winters on a winter island."

Usopp widens his eyes at this. "So the Grand Line's climate is unpredictable is because it's trapped between all these islands that have their own climate?"

"Exactly, and when the climate starts becoming stable that means an island is nearby."

Sanji keeps looking around then stops when he sees something in the horizon. "You're right, I see an island up ahead."

Rose finishes shoveling the deck, and looks out to see an island covered in snowy mountains coming into view. _*So this is Drum Island! Finally!*_

She runs up to the front, then stops when a flash of red and blue rushes past her to get to the ship's figurehead.

She blinks in surprise before she sees Luffy sitting down on the figurehead and grinning in excitement. "ALRIGHT, IT'S AN ISLAND!"

Sanji tiredly sighs as he finishes climbing down from the crow's nest. "Don't get too excited Luffy. We can't afford to stay too long. Once Nami gets better, we're leaving."

Luffy ignores his warning as he keeps staring at the snow, so Sanji sweat drops at his antics. "No good, he's off in his own world…"

Usopp looks at Luffy's vest, shorts, and sandals before he starts shivering. "How the hell are you not cold in that?! I'm freezing just looking at you?!"

Luffy looks at him in confusion for a moment, until he starts shivering and rubbing his arms. "It's cold!"

"NO SHIT!"

Rose giggles at the sight of Luffy running inside to get a jacket, then sees the ship approaching the coastline. "Whoa, this forest is huge."

Vivi nods when she sees Luffy and Zoro walk out in winter jackets. "We should be able to dock the ship around here. Going too deep into the forest could be dangerous."

Zoro nods before he turns to the others. "So, who's going to look for a doctor?"

Luffy quickly raises his hand up. "I'll go!"

Sanji nods in agreement. "Me too!"

Rose steps up. "If you don't mind, I'll go too."

Usopp nods while he crosses his arms over his chest. "That's perfect, go forth my comrades!"

"STOP RIGHT THERE PIRATES!"

Everyone widens their eyes at the yelling, and looks around the coastline to see that a small army of men have the ship surrounded.

Zoro keeps his stare at the sudden crowd. "Looks like there are people here after all."

A pale, bulky, dark haired man with a black goatee steps forward. "Turn around and leave this island immediately pirates."

Rose stays silent at the demand. _*So this is Dalton. He really is protective of the place.*_

Luffy widens his eyes at Dalton's demand. "Wait a minute; we only came here for a doctor!"

Vivi nods as she heads to the railing. "Please, we have a sick person on board! We need help!"

The natives start glaring at them before they yell out to the intruders.

"THOSE LIES WON'T WORK ON US PIRATE SCUM!"

"WE WON'T LET YOU PIRATES RAID OUR COUNTRY!"

"GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE BEFORE WE SHOOT!"

Sanji puffs a smoke from his cigarette, before he stares at the crowd with an un-amused look on his face. "Talk about a bad first impression."

"DON'T TALK BACK AT US!" One of the men tried to take a shot at Sanji. but he managed to dodge before the bullet could reach him.

Zoro has his hands on the hilts of his swords while Usopp looks at them in shock. "They're shooting at us?!"

Sanji's eyes were hidden behind his bangs for a brief moment. before he lifts his head to glare at the guy who tried to shoot him. "Now you've done it…"

The shooter nervously aims his gun at him again, so Sanji gets ready to confront him, but Vivi runs in front of him.

She grabs onto the chef to try to stop him from doing anything stupid. "Stop it Sanji! We shouldn't fight him!"

Rose widens her eyes at the scene when she remembers reading that the natives accidentally shoot Vivi. She focuses her wind to send the two of them flying closer to her, just before the shooter fires his gun and misses both of them. Everyone widens their eyes at the stunt while Rose sets Vivi and Sanji down.

"You two ok?"

Both of them nod while Luffy glares at the guy who took at shot at them. "HOW DARE YOU TRY TO SHOOT MY FRIENDS?!"

He began charging at them while the small army got ready to shoot when Vivi ran in front of Luffy to stop him.

"Wait Luffy, this isn't a problem we can solve by fighting! None of us got shot, so don't be angry!"

She turns to the natives before she bows to them on her hands and knees. "Please, I beg of you! We promise not to set foot on your country, but please call for a doctor! Our friend is really sick!"

Everyone widens their eyes at her behavior while Luffy looks at her softly. "Vivi…"

Vivi keeps her head down while she speaks up. "You're failing in your duty as a captain Luffy. You can't recklessly fight everyone to solve everything. Think about Nami. If you start a fight now, then what would become of her?"

Luffy stares at her for a moment before he turns to everyone. "Sorry, I was wrong..." He gets down on his hands and knees before he bows his head. "We really need a doctor. Please help our friend."

Both the pirates and civilians were speechless at their pleas when Dalton nods. "Very well, we'll lead you to our town."

Sanji calms down at the willingness to help, and rushes inside to get Nami.

Vivi smiles in relief as she gets up. "See Luffy? They understood us."

Luffy nods as he follows suit. "Yea, thanks Vivi."

Rose grins at the scene, and grows to admire Vivi's leadership. She feels that she made the right choice choosing to live in her country, and is motivated to do her part, as she gets off the ship.

Once Sanji walked onto the deck, with Nami sleeping on his back, everyone but Zoro and Carue join Rose on the coast and follows the natives through the snowy forest.

Dalton turns to the crew while he's walking with them. "I must warn you, this country only has one doctor, and she's a witch."

Usopp widens his eyes at this. "You can't be serious, witches don't exist!"

Rose chuckles at his doubt. "We just left an island filled with dinosaurs. I think the only thing that doesn't exist is the phrase 'doesn't exist'."

Vivi nods in agreement. "It doesn't matter as long as Nami can get better. Where are we anyway?"

Dalton looks ahead with a blank expression. "About that, as of yet this country doesn't have a name."

The princess looks at him in shock. "A nameless country? How is that possible?"

Before anyone can answer, Usopp screams in fright "AAH! A BEAR! EVERYONE PLAY DEAD!"

He falls onto the snow to play dead, while Dalton looks to see a giant, white, bear walking towards them on his hind legs with a walking stick. "It's just a hiking bear. He doesn't pose any danger, but you must mind your manners and remember to bow."

The crowd politely bows to the bear, who bows back to them, as they walk past each other while Usopp slowly gets up and brushes the snow off him.

After travelling for several minutes, the group reaches a small town filled with various people and animals.

"This is our town Big Horn." Dalton says as he shows leads them into the village.

Luffy, Rose and Usopp look around at the new surroundings in excitement.

The captain grins when he sees the various winter animals walking through the town. "Whoa, look at all the animals!"

Usopp nods as he admires the village. "So this is what a snow country's like!"

Rose looks around with a grin while she stays silent. However her smile clearly shows her enthusiasm for them to meet the crew's future doctor.

Sanji makes sure that Nami is secured on his back while he smiles at her. "We're finally at a town Nami; we'll get you better soon."

Nami stays silent while Dalton turns to his men. "Good work everyone, those of you that aren't on guard duty can now return to their normal jobs now."

One of the men widens his eyes at this. "Are you sure you can handle them alone Dalton? They're pirates after all."

He nods with a reassuring grin. "It's alright, they mean no harm. At least that's what my gut instinct tells me."

The others reluctantly agree before they head back to their daily jobs.

Vivi knits her eyebrows at the town's defenders getting to work before she turns to Dalton. "This country doesn't have any professional soldiers?"

He shakes his head as he leads them further into town. "No, they're civilians. For now please follow me. We can discuss everything at my house."

Everyone nods as they follow him to his home until they reach a small hut.

Dalton takes his jacket off, then gestures towards his bed. "You can place her here. I'll start a fire for us."

Sanji gently places Nami on the bed while Vivi tucks her in.

After Dalton starts the fire, he turns to everyone. "I apologize for the delayed introduction. My name's Dalton and my duty is to protect this island. I hope you can forgive the hostile welcome." He removes his jacket before he turns to Vivi. "If you don't mind, I'd like to ask you something miss."

She blinks in confusion as he continues. "I get the feeling I've seen you somewhere before. Would you happen to know where?"

She widens her eyes before quickly she shakes her head. "Y-you must be imagining things! I'm sure we never met, but more importantly what were you talking about when you said the only doctor is a witch?"

"Take a look from the window. You should be able to see the mountains."

Sanji walks up to the window to see the giant mountains that look like drums. "You mean the giant mountains we passed?"

"Yes, those mountains are called the snow rockies. If you look at the tallest one in the middle, there's a castle at the top."

Usopp, Luffy and Rose crowd the window with Sanji to see the castle at the top of the mountain.

"I see it!" Luffy says.

Usopp blinks at the sight before he turns to Dalton. "So why are you pointing us to the castle?"

"Dr. Kureha, our only doctor on the island who everyone calls a witch, lives in that castle."

"What?!" Everyone but Rose looks at him in shock.

The wind girl continues to stare at the castle with a small frown. _*She HAD to live on the tallest mountain...*_

Sanji groans in frustration. "Of course she had to live there. Well, we'd better call her right away then."

Dalton shakes his head. "As much as I'd like to, there is no way to contact her."

The chef turns to him in shock. "You can't be serious! What kind of a doctor is she?!"

"Her skills are undeniably excellent, but she's a little off and she's almost 140 years old."

Rose blinks at the information as if that's news to her. "Wow, she must be pretty tough to hang in there this long."

"What do the people of this country do when they're sick or injured?!" Vivi asks.

Dalton soft sighs before he runs a hand through his hair. "Well, she comes down the mountain whenever she feels like it. When she comes down, she finds patients to treat then afterwards she takes whatever she wants as payment."

"That's one mean hag..." Usopp says.

Luffy nods in agreement. "She's like a pirate."

"How does this old woman even make it off the mountain Dalton?" Vivi asks.

"According to witnesses, she supposedly rides down on a sleigh on moonlit nights. That's why she's called a witch. Others have said they've seen a bizarre creature travelling with her as well. In any case, I'm afraid you have to wait until she comes down again in order to heal your friend."

The others were speechless at the news when Luffy walks over Nami's bed, and lightly slaps her on the face to wake her up. "Hey Nami! Can you hear me?"

Usopp, Sanji and Vivi just stare at the insensitive captain in shock. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!"

Nami starts groaning as she slowly opens her eyes to make Luffy stop.

It does the trick, because the rubber man stops. "Great, you're awake! Listen, we can't get to a doctor unless we climb a mountain so we're hiking up."

Everyone, but Rose, widens their eyes at this.

Sanji is the first to recover as he glares at his captain. "Are you nuts?! Nami can't make it up there!"

Luffy turns to them as if he said nothing wrong. "It's fine, I'll carry her up there."

Vivi shakes her head. "Even if you did that, you could make her condition worse!"

He barely sees the problem though as he furrows his eyebrows at them. "What's the big deal? We just have to get her to the witch as fast as we can right?"

Vivi groans in frustration of his stubbornness before she points outside. "Yes, but it's impossible in this situation! Just look at how tall that mountain is!"

"I can climb it."

Usopp shakes his head. "Maybe YOU can, but it would be too much for Nami! What if you drop her?!"

"Then I'll catch her." The group turns to Rose in shock while she's casually grinning at them. "I think I have a good enough control of making others fly. If Luffy drops her, then I can catch her and give her back to him."

Luffy blinks in surprise of the support for his plan, before he gives her a large smile. "Great, let's work together then!"

She nods while Usopp widens his eyes at the pair. "Great, now we have to talk TWO crazy people out of doing something dangerous!"

Vivi snaps out of it, but keeps a shocked look on her face. "You can't be serious Rose! Even if you help out, it's too dangerous for someone in Nami's condition."

Rose frowns at the argument as she crosses her arms over her chest. "What do you suggest we do then? If we leave Nami like this it'll be dangerous too." _*Even if I tell them that Kureha's treating a kid now, we could still miss her and just waste time. It's best if I try not to make them stray from the storyline too much.*_

Before anyone can say anything further, Nami weakly raises her hand up. "Luffy."

The others turn to the red head while she smiles at her captain. "I'll leave it to you guys. Let's go to the doctor."

Luffy grins as he high fives her. "Great, leave it to us!"

Nami softly grins as she relaxes. "Yea."

Usopp looks at the sleepy navigator in utter shock. "Oh my god! Luffy's craziness is contagious!"

Rose chuckles at the accusation. "Maybe so, but this is the fastest way to treat Nami's sickness."

Sanji blinks at her confidence in the plan before he sighs in defeat. "Alright, if that's the case, I'll come too."

Vivi widens her eyes at this before she gives up. "I guess we have no choice. Just try to be careful out there."

Rose nods in agreement. "Right, as long as we keep her safe, it should be alright."

Usopp becomes slack jawed at Vivi's sudden change in attitude before he face palms. "Dammit, we really don't have a choice…" He turns to Luffy while he points at Nami. "Listen Luffy, letting Nami hit the ground once could mean the end of her got it?!"

Luffy widens his eyes at this. "What?! Even once?! Ok, I'll make sure I won't drop her then!" He picks Nami up onto his back before everyone moves outside.

"Hold on Luffy." Vivi goes up to him and ties a rope around his and Nami's waist. "There, this should help you make sure that you won't drop her. I'm going to stay behind here. If I went with you, I'd only slow you down."

Usopp steps back from the group, because he knows he'd slow them down as well. "I should stay behind too."

Luffy nods as he turns to Nami. "Alright, just hang tight till we get to the witch Nami."

Nami weakly nods as she keeps her arms around Luffy. "Ok…"

Dalton keeps quiet about his doubts on the plan, and points to the mountain. "If you're that serious then I won't stop you, but you should be very careful. The route from here is full of lapins, who are extremely carnivorous rabbits. If you come across a pack of them, then you won't live to tell the tale."

Luffy nods as he runs ahead. "ALRIGHT, LET'S GO BEFORE NAMI DIES!"

Sanji runs after him while he glares at his captain. "DON'T SAY SOMETHING LIKE THAT YOU IDIOT!"

Rose grins as she catches up with the guys, then looks back at the group that's staying behind. "Don't worry, we'll make sure Nami's safe during the journey!"

Vivi, Usopp and Dalton can only stay quiet as they watch them run off.

"I wonder if they'll really be ok..." Dalton says.

Usopp quietly sighs at how their situation turned out. "I wouldn't worry about the guys, and I think Rose can manage, but…"

"The problem is going to be whether or not Nami can make the journey. I just hope that they can make it to the top safe and sound." Vivi finishes for him.

"I see." Dalton starts heading to his house when he sees that Vivi and Usopp aren't following him. "What's wrong? You should come inside."

Vivi gives him a reassuring smile while she doesn't move from her spot. "It's fine, I want to stay outside for a little while."

Usopp nods with a determined look on his face. "Me too!"

Dalton softly smiles at them before he sits by them. "I see, mind if I join you then?"

Vivi and Usopp blink in surprise before they smile at him.

"Thank you Dalton." Vivi says as they continue to stay outside and watch their friends run off to face the snowy wilderness in order to reach Dr. Kureha's castle.

TO BE CONTINUED


	5. Chapter 5

While most of the crew left for the island, Zoro uses the free time to life weights on the deck. The swordsman doesn't stop the two hundredth count and sighs in boredom before he turns to Carue who's relaxing. "You know, I think it's time I start training for real."

Carue tilts his head in confusion as he watches the swordsman take his jacket, shirt and shoes off.

Once Zoro's shirtless he faces the water. "I've been getting tired of just lifting weights and I don't want to bore myself by just sitting around here, so I'm going to meditate while swimming."

Carue could only stare at the swordsman with an open beak as he watches him jump into the freezing water as if it was a swimming pool. Carue ran over to the railing and watched the air bubbles form on the surface. He stares at the surface for ten minutes, but he doesn't see any signs of Zoro surfacing. Once the air bubbles stop forming on the surface Carue screams in worry before he jumps in after him. While Carue's searching for the missing swordsman Zoro swims down the river to chase some fish without Carue knowing then he manages to surface far from the ship.

He looks around in confusion before he pulls himself out of the water and starts rubbing his arms to warm himself up. "Where the hell am I?"

He looks around then heads to a random direction in the woods. "I think the town's this way."

He walks off into the woods and leaves the poor duck alone to swim around for the lost swordsman.

* * *

Dalton stays outside with Vivi and Usopp while looking over the mountains that Luffy's group journeyed onto with worry. "I wonder if your friends are alright. I hope they didn't come across any lapins."

Usopp quirks an eyebrow at his worry. "You said that they're carnivorous, but they're still rabbits right?"

"Yes, they're agile as normal rabbits but with the body of bears."

Vivi widens her eyes at this. "Are they really that big?"

Before Dalton can say anything a large middle-aged woman walks up to the group. "There you are Dalton, I heard that you were looking for Dr. Kureha. Is that true?"

He nods at the question. "Yes, but the patient has already-"

"That's great; I heard she's down at Cocoa Weed right now."

The group looks at her in utter shock of thte news. "WHAT?!"

Dalton runs to the side of his house to get his sled that's being lead by two snow yaks. "Climb on; I can take you two to Cocoa Weed right now. If we hurry, we might be able to catch up to Dr. Kureha."

Vivi and Usopp quickly climb onto the sled before Dalton ushers the yaks to charge into the woods to get to Cocoa Weed as fast as they can while Luffy's group continues their trip to the mountain.

* * *

Luffy makes sure that Nami's sleeping body is secured on his back while he runs up the base of the snowy mountain with Sanji and Rose.

Sanji shivers for a second before he looks down at the rubber man's sandals in disbelief. "Why the hell are you still wearing sandals?! I'm getting cold just looking at you!"

"It's my police!"

The chef rolls his eyes at the mispronunciation before he corrects him. "You mean 'policy'."

A dark figure growls at the group from behind the trees while Rose chuckles and looks down at Luffy's feet. "Still, aren't your feet numb or something?"

"Nope, I'm good. Hey, do you guys know that the people in snow countries don't sleep?"

Sanji looks at him in confusion. "Why's that?"

"Because they'll die if they do."

Rose holds back from laughing when the group narrowly dodges a feral rabbit that tried to pounce on them. She widens her eyes at the small attacker while she continues to run with the guys. _*What the hell?! That's the baby lapin that they dealt with?!*_

Sanji ignores the small lapin while he looks at Luffy in disbelief. "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard."

Luffy ducks to avoid the rabbit who tried jump him from behind. "It's the truth! That's what the guy said!"

Sanji quirks an eyebrow at the declaration as he jumps to dodge the lapin. "Who, Usopp?"

"No, a guy from a bar."

The lapin tries to bite Rose but she jumps to the side while she giggles at Luffy's explanation. "That still doesn't mean that people from snow countries don't sleep Luffy."

"How would you know?"

Sanji groans in frustration of dealing with his captain's stubbornness. "Ok then explain this, why did Dalton have a bed in his house?"

Luffy tilts his head in thought before he widens his eyes to his answer. "I know! He got it for when it's time for him to die!"

Sanji widens his eyes at the answer. "That's even more ridiculous!"

Rose laughs at the small argument while the lapin tries to attack them again, but he misses and bites a tree again. He snaps the tree in half with his fangs which causes the top half of the tree to fall towards the group, but they managed to avoid getting hit.

The lapin sweat drops at the running group while Rose tries her best not to look at him. _*That's one persistent rabbit. If Sanji kicks him then the he'll get his folks.*_

She turns to the others while she gestures her head to the rabbit. "I've heard of one guys. Lapins like the one that's been tailing us tend to travel in packs, so we shouldn't mess with them. I'm sure the little guy would call his folks if we try to hit him."

Luffy tilts his head in confusion. "Facing a pack of those guys doesn't sound that bad though."

Sanji nods as he grins at Rose with hearts in his eyes. "If any of them try to hurt you or Nami I'll be sure to protect you dear Rose-chan!"

Rose groans at the flirting as she narrows her eyes at him. "I already said that I don't need protection!"

He nods as if he's listening before he starts happily daydreaming. "Since we're talking about snow countries, I have a fact. Did you two know that the women of snowy countries have beautiful smooth skin?"

Rose quirks an eyebrow at the statement but stays silent while Luffy looks at him in confusion. "Why's that?"

"Isn't it obvious? You know how when it gets cold you rub your skin together? Well that's why."

Rose chuckles at that while she jumps to the side to avoid the lapin from biting her. "Where'd you hear that from?"

"From a few customers at the Baratie. They even showed me a photo that proves having smooth white skin is the trademark of women from snowy countries."

Luffy tilts his head in confusion. "Why white skin?"

Sanji shows off a goofy smile at the thought of beautiful pale women. "Because the beautiful white snow seeps into their skin."

Luffy jumps to dodge the lapin while he blankly stares at the chef. "That's pretty stupid."

Sanji twitches an eyebrow at the insult as the lapin charges towards him. "I don't want to hear that from you! AND WILL YOU KNOCK IT OFF YOU STUPID RABBIT?!"

He kicks the rabbit to send him flying so far that they lost sight of him.

Luffy sighs in relief of not having to deal with the baby lapin anymore. "Man, that rabbit was annoying."

Rose widens her eyes at that kick and bites her lip in frustration. _*Shit, he's gonna get his pack now!*_

She looks around for the lapins then stops when she sees a large branch on the ground. _*Better than nothing!*_

She picks up the branch while the guys stop and look back at her.

"What are you doing?" Sanji asks.

She tests the tall stick's weight then smiles in satisfaction when she feels confident that she can manage with it. "Getting a weapon in case that lapin comes back with his pack."

Luffy nods before the group continues onward while they try to ignore the snow at their feet that's getting thicker by the minute.

Sanji turns to Luffy to see him roughly pulling his legs out of the knee deep snow to keep going. "Be more careful when carrying Nami or her body won't hold up."

Luffy nods as he makes sure that Nami is secured on his back, then the group freezes when they see a large pack of lapins, that are the size of polar bears, facing them with the baby lapin that Sanji kicked on the leader's back.

"What the hell are they?" Sanji asks.

"I think they're polar bears." Luffy says.

Rose shakes her head as she tightly grips onto the stick in her hand. "They're fully grown lapins. The one Sanji kicked called his folks for revenge."

A giant lapin rushes over to the group and jumps to attack but everyone rushes to the side to dodge.

Luffy manages to land on his feet then he looks at the pack in shock. "How can they move so quickly in all of this snow?"

Sanji scowls at the pack that's getting ready to pounce on them. "Looks like we shouldn't expect less from snow creatures. We're at a disadvantage here. Luffy, whatever you do don't attack them."

Luffy looks at him in confusion. "Why not?"

"Every blow you deliver or receive will be transferred over to Nami as well. If that happens she'll die for sure."

Rose looks at Nami softly before she glares at the pack. _*Dammit, I can't take Nami off Luffy's hands since I'm not as fast as he is and I can't fly on command yet. If I only make her fly and break my concentration I could wind up hurting her too… The best thing I can do is help fight off the pack.*_

She grips her stick while she dodges a lapin's attack and sends him flying with her wind. "Sanji and I can cover for you Luffy. What's important is Nami's health."

Luffy slowly nods in understanding. "Got it, I promise not to fight." He quickly ducks to dodge one of the lapins' strikes. "Wait, what should I do then?!"

Sanji dodges another rabbits attack before he gives Luffy his orders. "Just dodge for now! Dodge and run away, but don't run too fast!"

"THAT'S WAY TOO HARD!"

Another lapin tries to strike at Luffy but Rose rushes over and whacks him in the face with the branch before she sends him flying with another gust of wind. She keeps her focus on the snarling rabbits while she grips her branch. "I don't think we have much of a choice here!"

Luffy nods as he starts running with Rose following.

A rabbit tries to attack Sanji from behind, but he manages to kick him first. "Flanchet, SHOOT!" He sends him flying but he lands on his back just a few feet away from him.

Sanji groans in frustration as he catches up to the others. _*Damn, it's hard to get any good kicks in with both feet stuck in the snow.*_

All the rabbits jump towards them at once, but before they can touch them, Rose swings her branch at the direction of the rabbits to create a large gust of wind to pushes ten of the closest rabbits back and slams them into the ones behind them.

Luffy looks back at the attack and grins in excitement of the cool move. "Whoa, nice shot!"

"Thanks, but they're not gonna give up that easily."

Sanji groans at their situation as he sees the pack running rejoining the chase. "We gotta find a way to shake them off. If we fight them all there's no telling how long it'll take."

A rabbit charges at Luffy from the side, and forces the captain to get ready to kick before Sanji grabs his foot and kicks the rabbit in his place.

"I thought I told you not to fight! This is a matter of life and death here!"

Luffy nods as he takes his foot back and gets back to running. "Right, sorry!"

The chase continues on as the group reaches a rock ledge that gets them closer to the summit. Luffy jumps on a lapin to make it onto the cliff side while Rose blows some wind onto the ground to gain some altitude with Sanji jumping after her.

A lapin jumps at Sanji from behind, but he manages to kick him away while another one was about to strike him. Before the rabbit could hit the blonde, Rose uses her wind to pull chef onto the cliff side, but leaves herself wide open for the rabbit to hit her left side and send her flying into the nearby forest.

She tries to use her wind to start flying, but nothing happens then she widens her eyes when she sees herself about to crash into a large tree. Before she could hit the tree, she takes a deep breath to blow her wind against it to stop herself just a foot away from it, and falls face first into the soft snow.

She sits up and catches her breath while she clenches onto her left side where the rabbit struck her, and she uses her branch to help stand herself up. _*Shit, that really hurt… I better catch up to the others before they try to come back for me.*_

She keeps the branch in her hand as she runs as fast as she can while ignoring the aching pain in her side.

* * *

Sanji and Luffy stopped running away after they saw Rose's flight in hopes of her coming back, but there's no sign of her as four of the lapins run to the woods to go after her. The rest of the pack starts jumping onto the mountainside where they were and tries to strike them while they all continue to dodge.

"ROSE! YOU OK?!" Luffy yells as he continues to dodge the lapins.

Sanji furiously kicks the rabbit that sent her flying to send him crashing into another rabbit. He knows that they can't just leave her alone to face them even if they have to backtrack on their journey. "Luffy, we need to-"

"I'M OK!"

Luffy and Sanji widen their eyes at Rose's voice as she keeps yelling from the forest. "DON'T WORRY ABOUT ME! I'LL CATCH UP WHEN I LOSE THE OVERGROWN EASTER BUNNIES! KEEP GOING AND DON'T STOP! SANJI, SO HELP ME IF YOU DRAG THE OTHERS DOWN HERE TO FIND ME I WON'T FORGIVE YOU!"

Luffy blinks surprise at Rose's demand before he calls out to her. "GOT IT! WE'LL SEE YOU AT THE TOP!"

He runs ahead to get away from the pack with Sanji following closely behind.

Sanji looks back to the forest where Rose is and starts having conflicted feelings about the plan. "I don't know about this Luffy. She doesn't have full control of her power yet."

Luffy shakes his head as he keeps running. "I think she'll be ok. She's pretty good at fighting. Besides, she said she won't forgive you if we go get her."

Sanji groans at the mention of not being forgiven as he follows Luffy up the mountain with the pack of lapins in pursuit. "Fine, then let's hurry and bring Nami to the castle, so we can come back for Rose."

Luffy nods as they make a run for it while Rose is running away from the four lapins chasing her.

She groans in frustration when she looks back at the lapins chasing her. "Seriously, what's with the carnivores in this world? There's a lot more meatier prey than me around here!"

She reaches another part of cliffside where she finds herself cornered by the group of lapins. She grows more irritated at her situation by the minute as she glares at them and gets in a stance. "Ok, you know what? Screw it, if you want a fight then bring it!"

The four animals nod as they get ready to pounce when they stop to feel the ground shaking.

Rose widens her eyes at the shaking ground and realizes that this is the moment when the rest of the lapins cause an avalanche.

She looks up to the sky and yells out to the others. "GUYS, IF YOU CAN HEAR ME RUN DOWN THE MOUNTAIN AS FAST AS YOU FREAKING CAN! THESE CRAZY RABBITS ARE TRYING TO START AN AVALANCHE!"

The rabbits in front of her snap out of it, and snarl at the insult before they jump at her. Just when the brunette is about to retaliate she suddenly flies straight up, and leaves them to crash head first into the mountainside to knock themselves out.

Rose at the sudden flight when she stops rising about fifteen feet in the air, and hitches her breath at the sight of a giant avalanche falling from the mountaintop. _*I officially hate rabbits… Where are the others?!*_

She starts flying towards the path that the guys took when she sees the pirates running onto a tall cliff in hopes of escaping the avalanche. She widens her eyes when she sees that they're still not high enough, because all three of them crash into the avalanche. Once the snow collided with the group, Luffy and Nami were sent flying while Sanji was swept away into the flow.

"GUYS!" Rose flies as fast as she can to them when she sees Sanji struggling to keep his body above the snow. She flies down to grab his hand and flies up to pull him out of the avalanche. However, before she can start getting Sanji flying on his own, the wind holding her up fades away.

"OH SHIT!" She manages to send Sanji flying so he doesn't fall with her, but before she hits the snow a rubber arm wraps around her waist to pull her to the owner while she uses her wind to bring Sanji with her.

Rose blinks at the rescue when Luffy sets her down on the broken tree that he's riding with Nami, then sets Sanji down next to her. "Thanks Luffy, are you ok Sanji?"

The chef nods as he grins at the freckled girl. "I'm more than alright since I was saved by an angel. What about you? That shitty rabbit hit you pretty hard."

She gives him a reassuring smile while she ignores the compliment. "Yea, I'm fine. I can't believe we escaped the avalanche though."

Luffy nods then looks ahead in frustration. "Yea, we made it but now we're riding down the mountain!"

Rose widens her eyes when she sees that they really are going down the mountain, so she scoots to the front of the tree. "Hang on, let me try."

She lifted her arms up to create a gust of wind in front of the tree to try to drive it up against the snow current, but it only slowed the ride down until the wind faded away. She tries again, but this time tries uses her wind to make the tree fly off the snow, but it won't budge. "Dammit, my wind's not strong enough. Sorry guys."

Sanji shakes his head at the apology before he scowls at the memory of the rabbits. "Don't be, it's those damn rabbits who are to blame. If I see them again I'm going to make hot pot out of them!"

Rose nods as she looks back, then drops her jaw at the sight behind them. "Um guys, we might have that chance sooner than we think…"

Luffy and Sanji look back in confusion before they were also slack jawed at the sight of the lapins pursuing them again by snowboarding on broken trees.

"WHAT THE HELL?!" Luffy yells before a rabbit rides next to them and tries to hit Luffy and Nami, but Luffy pulls Nami down along with him to dodge.

Sanji and Rose start fighting off the rabbits that try to attack them while Luffy dodges with Nami on his back.

Sanji kicks a rabbit to send him flying then widens his blue eyes when he looks ahead to see that they're heading towards a rock ledge with broken trees standing on top. "Oh shit!"

Luffy dodges another rabbit then sees the rock close by. "Holy crap, we're gonna hit a rock!"

Sanji shakes his head. "You can't get hurt since you're carrying Nami!"

He throws Luffy and Nami up off the tree while Rose uses her wind to slow down the tree and try to turn it, but it's still approaching the rock. _*Shit, it looks like we're still gonna still get hit. I'd better get Sanji off the-*_

"Pardon my roughness Rose-chan, but I'd rather not see a lovely lady get hurt on our behalf twice."

Rose turns around only for the gentleman pirate to pick her up and throw her into the air just before the tree crashes into the rock to send him flying.

Luffy widens his eyes in horror at the sight of the crash. "SANJI!"

Rose grits her teeth in frustration, while she's still in mid air, as she goes to use her wind to try to grab Sanji before he hits the snow. However, before she can save him, a lapin manages to strike her so that she lands back first onto the rock just before he and the rest of his pack fall into the snow.

Luffy grabs onto the edge of the rock with one hand while keeping Nami secured on his back with the other.

Sanji lands in the snow and starts getting carried away by the current while smiling in satisfaction. "Good, they're safe…"

Rose forces herself to get up and sees Sanji sinking into the avalanche. She tries to use her wind to try to pull him out, but it won't lift him out of the snow because her wind can only make things fly off the ground or mid air.

She sees Luffy starting to pull Nami and himself onto the rock, so she goes to the edge and pull them safely onto the rock.

Luffy gently lays Nami on the ground then turns around to see that Sanji's hand is the only thing left above the snow. "WE DIDN'T TELL YOU TO DO THAT YOU IDIOT!"

He stretches his arm to grab his hand, but it turns out that the only thing that was above the snow was his glove. "AAAH! WE LOST SANJI!"

Rose rakes her hands through her hair in frustration. "THAT DUMBASS!"

The avalanche finally stops, so Luffy takes off his jacket and lays it on top of Nami. He takes off his straw hat and gives it to Rose. "Watch Nami and hold onto my hat for a bit. I'm gonna go get Sanji."

She nods as she holds onto the hat while Luffy swan dives into the snow to go after his friend. She quietly sighs in frustration of how things went, then slowly sits next to Nami and looks at the sleeping redhead softly. "I'm sorry Nami, I promise I'll make sure we get through the rest of the trek as quick and painless as possible…"

Nami doesn't respond as she shivers in her sleep.

Rose notices her shivering then places the hat next to her before she starts unzipping her jacket, but she stops to cringe at the pain in both her back and side. _*Shit, those rabbit monsters really did a number on me. Wait, why is my back warm?*_

She shakes her head at the thought as she finishes unzipping her jacket then slowly pulls the jacket off of her. Once the coat's off, she widens her eyes to see that the inside of the back of her jacket was blotted with blood. She quickly touches her back, and groans in pain before she pulls her hand back to see that her gloved fingers are lightly stained in blood.

 _*Crap, that last hit must've scraped my back!*_ She gathers up some snow and washes half of the blood off the jacket before she covers Nami with it. In order to stop the bleeding, she gathers some more snow to stuff in the back of her shirt.

She cringes from the seething cold before she lays on her back to let the snow ease the pain. _*The stain on my jacket didn't look that bad, so I'm sure the snow can stop the bleeding by the time Luffy gets back.*_

Once she started to relax, she grabbed Luffy's hat and looked it over to distract herself. _*So, this is the legendary straw hat that started it all. The one that not only belonged to Shanks, but Gol D. Roger himself. For a hat that's at least thirty years old it looks almost brand new. Guess that shows how much Luffy treasures it.*_

She softly grins at the beloved bundle of straw when she hears the sound of snow shifting. She slowly sits up to see Luffy walking towards the rock while he's carrying an unconscious Sanji on his back.

She quickly took the half red snow out of her shirt and covered it in some of the surrounding snow. in order to prevent the captain from worrying about her, she grabs her jacket and places it over her shoulders to cover her stained shirt.

Luffy climbs onto the rock and lays Sanji down, before he catches his breath, and turns to Rose. "Did any rabbits come back?"

Rose shook her head as she placed the straw hat back on his head. "No, it's been quiet."

She goes over to Sanji and reaches for his jacket's zipper.

When Luffy sees her unzipping the chef's coat, he looks at her in shock. "Hey, what are you doing?! He's cold enough!"

She finishes unzipping Sanji's jacket before she points to the blonde's red face. "He got frostbitten from being buried in the avalanche. One of the best ways to warm someone up is to get their frozen clothes off and replace them, but since we're short on time and clothes I'm just going to switch jackets with him."

Luffy blinks at the explanation before he turns around to get Nami back on his back. "I thought you said you didn't know any medical stuff."

"I said that I didn't know how to treat Nami's illness, but this is basic stuff." While Luffy's back was turned Rose quickly gets her jacket on Sanji without zipping it then throws on his jacket to cover her back. _*Looks like my jacket's too small for me to zip it on him. At least I can get it on him.*_

Luffy manages to get Nami on his back while he keep his jacket on her shoulders, then picks Sanji up under his arm. "Ok, let's get going. We just gotta climb up now."

Rose nods as she picks up her branch and starts walking with him towards the mountain. "Alright, just remember to run if we face anymore enemies."

He nods as he focuses his gaze on the mountain. "Got-"

He cuts himself off when they hear small cries, and look to see that the baby lapin Sanji kicked is crying next to a giant paw sticking out of the snow as he tries to dig the rest of the rabbit out.

Rose looks at him softly for a second as she goes to help him, but before she can do anything Luffy goes up to the paw, grabs it with his free arm, and pulls the large lapin out of the snow. After he pulls the rabbit out, Luffy walks ahead with Rose quickly following while the two rabbits silently watch the humans walk away.

As the group continues walking, Luffy keeps his focus on the large drum shaped mountain while he carries his crewmates. "Don't worry guys, we'll be there soon."

Rose looks at the large drum shaped mountain in thought. _*We're almost there. Once we reach the base I can shorten the climb up by-*_

"THERE THEY ARE!"

Rose and Luffy look back in confusion to see a man dressed as a jester, a boxer wearing a black afro, and their leader Wapol riding on a furry white hippo towards them.

Wapol stops the hippo in front of them as he scowls at the group. "It's been a while brats. You have a lot of nerve coming to my kingdom after you disrespected me."

Rose clenches on her branch, but stays quiet while Luffy scowls at him. "Get out of our way."

Wapol laughs at the demand. "Hahaha, are you nuts? Why should we get out of your way? After all, those pieces of trash you're carrying are dead anyway."

Luffy and Rose stay quiet as they duck under the hippo to get past him and keep walking towards the mountain.

Wapol widens his eyes at their disrespect before his shock was replaced by fury. "HEY, DON'T WALK AWAY FROM ME!"

Neither of them respond to his commands, so he turns to the court jester that's riding with him. "Chess, write down this new law that I came up with."

Chess nods as he grabs a pen and a piece of paper from his bag. "Yes sir, what's the law?"

"Whoever turns their back on the king is to be executed! Now go and kill every last one of them!"

Chess nods as he jumps off the hippo and charges towards Luffy and Rose. "Yes my lord! Let's go Kuromarimo!"

The boxer complies by joining the assault with his partner. "You don't have to tell me!"

Luffy turns around to see Kuromarimo jump up and grow iron spikes on his gloves. "Face my- WAAH!"

He cuts himself off when Rose swings her branch to create a gust of wind to send him flying into Chess, then starts running with Luffy.

Luffy grits his teeth in frustration as he keeps running. "Dammit, quit bothering us already!"

Chess gets up and aims his bow, that's containing three large arrows, at them. "How about you quit running cowards!"

He fires the arrows, but before they can hit, Rose creates another gust with her branch to block them.

"Winter Empire's secret technique, hiding in the snow." Rose widens her eyes at Wapol's voice as she looks back to see that he and his henchmen are out of sight.

Luffy looks back in confusion while they keep running. "Where did they go?"

Rose shrugs then looks ahead in shock to see a large mouth open up right in front of Luffy, but before he got bit he quickly jumps back next to Rose.

Wapol smirks at his prey as the rest of his body comes into view. "Don't think you can just run away from a king and live! Now guys!"

Chess and Kuromarimo come out of hiding with their weapons at the ready. "LET'S SEE YOU BLOCK US BOTH AT ONCE!"

Rose grits her teeth as she gets her stick ready when suddenly two large lapins swoop in and slam both Chess and Kuromarimo to the ground.

Wapol could only stare in shock, as the pack of lapins block his path from Luffy's group, while his henchmen slowly get up.

"Are they actually helping those kids?" Kuromarimo asks.

Chess looks at them in disbelief. "That can't be right! Lapins hate humans!"

The baby Lapin that Luffy helped stays on the leader's back while he nods for Luffy and Rose to leave.

Luffy nods in understanding as he runs off to the mountains with Rose. "Thank you for helping us!"

Rose looks back while she grips her stick, then creates a gust of wind to flip Wapol over and slam him down on his head. "That's for trying to eat my friends you jackass!"

Wapol widens his eyes at the attack as he gets up and glares at the escaping girl. "SO YOU'RE THE ONE THAT RUINED MY MEAL ON THE SHIP!" He starts running after them, but his path was cut off by the pack of lapins.

He grits his teeth furiously at the pack. "Dammit, Chess, Kuromarimo, I don't care what it takes. Get these vermin out of our way now!"

"Yes sire!" The two soldiers charge the pack and begin the battle between man and snowy beast without hesitation.

* * *

Luffy and Rose keep walking towards the mountain with their unconscious friends for what seemed like hours and are struggling to stay warm against the freezing cold.

Rose rubs her arm to stay warm with her free hand while holding onto the branch with the other. She turns to Luffy to see that he's lightly panting from exhaustion of carrying Nami and Sanji then sees his skin is turning red from the cold. "Hey Luffy, I think we're safe from here on out. I can take one of them off your hands if you want."

He shakes his head as he keeps a hold of his friends. "I'm fine, we're not that far from the mountain."

Rose slowly nods when she sees the base of the cylinder shaped mountain coming into view. "Ok, I have an idea on how to get to the top quickly."

Luffy looks at her in confusion. "What kind of idea?"

"Since we're getting close to the mountain I was thinking of using my wind to lift the three of you up to the top."

He widens his eyes at the idea. "What?! What about you?!"

She grins at the worrisome captain as she shows him her stick. "Once you guys are at the peak I'll make my branch fly then ride on it to get up there." _*Not sure if I can actually do it or not, but that's what experiments are for.*_

He blinks at the idea before he brightly smiles at her. "Really?! That sounds awesome!"

She chuckles at his enthusiasm when they reach the base of the steep mountain. "Ok, I'm going to take it a little slow so that nothing happens. If it looks like Sanji or Nami are about to fall from your grip, let me know and I'll create a gust to catch them."

Luffy nods as he takes a few steps back while he's keeping Nami on his back and Sanji under his arm. "Alright, once we're at the top I'll yell for you to come up."

Rose nods as she starts focusing on the group, and then raises her hand up to create a gust of wind around Luffy that starts lifting his feet off the ground.

Luffy grins in excitement as he starts ascending towards the top with his crewmates. "This is awesome! Just hang tight guys, you're gonna see a doctor right now!"

Nami and Sanji stayed unconscious while they continued flying towards the top.

Rose lightly pants from exhaustion as she concentrates her powers to keep raising the others to the top. _*Looks like it's working. I can't mess up now.*_

She keeps her eyes on her wind to make sure that she doesn't drop them when Sanji slips out of Luffy's grip.

Luffy widens his eyes at the falling chef. "AAAH! SANJI!"

Rose widens her eyes as she stops lifting them higher and goes to create a gust of wind to catch him, but before she could do anything Luffy stretches his arm and grabs his leg.

Rose quietly sighs in relief when she sees Luffy pulling Sanji up under his arm again, then continues lifting them up alongside the mountain wall. _*That was close. Just a little more now.*_

When she sees that they're reaching the ledge she manages to bring them over the edge before she breaks her concentration and stops the wind. After her wind fades, she collapses on her knees from the exhaustion. As she sits down to catch her breath, she looks up at the mountain top with an accomplished smile on her face from helping the pirates. _*Holy shit, I freaking did it! WHOO!*_

"HEY ROSE, WE MADE IT! COME ON UP!"

Rose snaps out of it to the sound of Luffy's voice, then stands up and yells up to him. "I'M COMING! BRING THE OTHERS INSIDE!"

"OK, BUT HURRY IT UP!"

"GOT IT!" _*Ok, Harry Potter time.*_

She shifts her attention to the branch in her hand then focuses her wind to lift it up while she's still panting. _*I just gotta hold up till I reach the top then I get to meet Chopper!*_

She grins at the excitement of meeting the next crew member before she sits on the branch, just as how a witch would sit on a broom, and starts slowly floating up along the mountain.

* * *

Luffy grins in excitement as he carries his friends to the enormous castle that's coated in snow. "Whoa, this castle is huge."

"Who are you?" Luffy turns his attention to the voice at the door to see a large, shirtless, blue nosed man, who's coated with brown fur, and wearing purple shorts and a pink top hat walking out.

Luffy widens his eyes at the creature in front of him as he slowly approaches the door. "Are you the doctor?!"

He shakes his head. "No, I'm her assistant. Doctorine's inside right now."

"Great, then please help my friends! Nami's sick, and Sanji's injured!"

He nods before he takes Sanji from him and leads Luffy inside to the medical room where an old woman, dressed like a teenager, is mixing up medicine. "Doctorine, we have some patients that need help!"

The old woman grins as she places her medical equipment down, then turns to the group, and points to the only empty bed in the room. "Really? Ok Chopper, place the girl in that bed and bring the blondie in the room next door. Straw hat boy, we'll treat your injuries too."

Luffy shakes his head as he gently places Nami onto the bed and covers her with a blanket. "I'm fine, just heal my friends."

She smirks at his stubbornness before she gets ready to go back to her medicine. "I won't heal them unless you let me heal you too."

Luffy widens his eyes at the threat before she slowly nods. "Fine, there's another girl on her way here too."

Chopper nods as he brings Sanji out of the room. "I'll go get her after I place him in the other room. Follow me."

Luffy complies as he follows him into the other room.

Once Chopper takes Rose's jacket off the chef, he widens his eyes at the faded blood on the inside of the jacket then looks at the back of Sanji's shirt to see that he wasn't bleeding. "Who does this jacket belong to?!"

the captain looks at him in confusion as he sits down on another bed. "It belongs to my friend that's on her way here, why?"

He turns around and shows him the blood stain. "There's blood on this jacket!"

Luffy widens his eyes at the realization that Rose is travelling on her own with an injury before he gets up, and runs out.

Chopper couldn't believe that he ran off to face the cold again so he chases after him to try to stop him. "Wait, where are you going?! You're in no condition to go out there again!"

"I don't care! I gotta go help my friend!"

Chopper widens his eyes at his determination to not leave his friend behind as he stops and watches him leave.

Dr. Kureha walks out of the room and goes up to her assistant from behind. "Go make sure that he doesn't die. I'll start treating the others."

He slowly nods as he keeps his gaze on the fleeing pirate for another second before he follows him.

* * *

Rose is now heavily breathing from exhaustion as she uses as much wind as she can create to lift the branch up along with her.

Her bony body won't stop shivering from the freezing cold as she keeps floating up then looks down at her numbing hands. She flails one arm at a time to keep her blood flowing while she keeps one hand on the branch at all times. _*How much longer until I reach the top? If this keeps up, I'm gonna turn into a popsicle…*_

She looks up to see the edge of the mountain coming into view and smiles at the knowledge that it's almost over, until she starts sniffling. _*Oh shit, please not now!*_

She tries holding back her sneezing by covering her mouth and nose with her elbow, but it was no good as she sneezes and creates a gust of wind to send her flying up and lose her grip on the branch.

She quickly caught herself by grabbing onto the mountain wall, and tried to create a new gust of wind to grab the branch, but nothing happened as she watched the stick land in the snow.

"Shit!" She looks up to see that she's about twelve feet away from the edge of the mountain. _*Looks like I have no choice but to climb. I better not try anything else with my wind or I might end up free falling…*_

She grits her teeth as she starts scaling the mountain while she keeps her gaze on the icy rocks in front of her. as she continues to scale the mountain her mind begins to wander on how things were when she read this scene in the manga. _*I can't believe Luffy scaled this entire mountain while carrying Nami and Sanji in the manga. Gotta respect that persistence of his. He's probably getting forced to rest right-*_

She snaps out of her thoughts when her hands slipped, and she loses her balance before she start falling off the rock."Crap!"

She tries to grab onto the mountain again, but before she can grab anything she feels something grab her wrist causing her to stop falling. She looks up in shock to see Luffy, a few feet above her, with one hand stretched to hold onto the snowy ledge while his other hand is pulling her up.

Once the wind girl sees the pirate's pissed off facial expression she quietly gulps at the realization that he saw the blood on her coat.

Luffy pulls her up, so that she's face to face with him, then keeps holding her up by the wrist. "Why the hell didn't you tell me that you got hurt?!"

She nervously scratches the back of her head with her free hand while she looks away from him. "It was just a scrape on my back. It's not a big deal…"

"Not a big deal?! I saw blood on your jacket!"

"While you went to dig out Sanji, I placed snow on my back to stop the bleeding. Speaking of jackets, why didn't you grab yours before heading out again?!"

"Don't change the subject! You should have told me that you got hurt!"

She sighs in frustration of his pointless scolding before she looks him in the eye with a serious expression on her face. "Look, Nami and Sanji were our first priority at the time! There wasn't a point in telling you that I got hurt and worrying you about it! When we get to Dr. Kureha's, I'll get myself treated. She's helping out Sanji and Nami right now right?"

His face softens when he sees that she was looking out for his friends' best interests, just as he was, before he smiles at her. "Yea, they're getting treated right now. When they're done you're next! Get on my back, I'm gonna pull us up."

Before Rose can say anything, Luffy pulls her onto his back, so she quickly wraps her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist so that she doesn't fall off. "G-got it, but please don't try rocketing us from here."

Luffy nods as he stretches his other arm onto the ledge then starts slowly pulling them up. "Alright, just hang tight until we get there."

She soft grins at the rubber man as she starts relaxing on his back. "Ok, thanks for coming back for me by the way."

He flashes her a cute, toothy grin as they get closer to the ledge. "Don't worry about it, that's what friends do right?"

She widens her eyes at being called his friend before she nods with a sheepish grin. "Right."

Once they reach the ledge, Rose gets off of Luffy to grab onto the ledge while he pulls himself up, but before either of them are safely on the mountain the snow under them collapses causing them to fall.

 _*CAN'T WE GET A BREAK ALREADY?!*_ Rose groans in frustration as she tries to use her wind to lift them up, but before anything happens two large brown hands grab onto their wrists and pull them onto the ledge.

Rose widens her eyes in shock as she looks up to see Chopper in his human form throwing them onto his shoulders.

Luffy widens his eyes at being carried like a rag doll before he weakly struggles to get out of his hold. "Hey, put us down!"

Chopper ignores the demand as he brings them inside. "Shut up, you shouldn't be out here in the first place! You're lucky you didn't already freeze to death by wearing that!"

Rose swallowed her excitement from seeing the humanoid reindeer as she's carried throughout the castle. _*Holy crap, it's Chopper! His nose really is blue! This is so cool!*_

Chopper goes into the room where Dr. Kureha is currently treating Sanji, then drops Luffy onto the bed. "Just stay there and wait to get treated."

Luffy furrows his eyebrows as he sits up to protest, but he suddenly feels a needle hit his arm before he falls unconscious.

Rose widened her purple eyes at the sedative shot that was thrown at Luffy courtesy of Dr. Kureha.

The doctor keeps a sadistic smirk on her face, as she turns to the brunette, while she holds up another sedative needle. "Now kid, I'm sure you're not going to cause any trouble like your friend there right?"

The wind girl quickly nods while she keeps a nervous smile on her face. "R-right ma'am…" _*That's one scary hag…*_

Kureha nods in satisfaction as she finishes treating Sanji. "Good then Chopper, go place her in the room where the redhead is while I deal with the other boy. I cleared my medical supplies off the other bed."

Chopper nods as he walks out of the room with Rose still on his shoulder.

Rose turns to him when they enter the room then bows her head. "Thank you for saving us. If I can ask, could you please treat the redhead first? Her disease is really bad. If you don't believe me, you could check her stomach."

He nods to the request as he gently sets her on the bed. "Don't worry, we'll take care of her. Right now, you should focus on yourself."

She nods with a small smile as the exhaustion from the journey begins to catch up to her. "Thank you doc."

Chopper widens his eyes at the nickname as he watches her fall asleep. _*D-doc?*_

He snaps out of his thoughts when Kureha walks in. "She fell asleep?"

He nods as he shrinks down until he turns into a tiny two legged reindeer. "Yea, she said that we need to take care of the other girl first because her disease is serious. She also said that the proof is on her stomach."

Kureha quirks an eyebrow at the claim before she goes up to Nami, takes her jacket off, then slightly lifts her shirt to see the red bug bite on her stomach. _*This bite!*_

She quickly goes to her medical equipment to get the antibiotics ready then turns to Chopper. "You take care of the freckled girl. I know what to do with this one."

Chopper nods as he and Kureha get to work on treating the mysterious group that managed to travel to their secluded home.

TO BE CONTINUED


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Hi guys, here's the next chapter to Drum Island. I'm really glad I pulled this off before the holiday. For those of you that celebrate, Happy Easter.**

 **Before I finish I just want to ask you guys something: what's your opinion on the fillers?**

 **I've received a few requests to add them into the story and some were really good, but I'm sort of wavering on the ones I'm not a fan of so I'm going to leave it as a vote via PM.**

 **I would like to be consistent so if it's a yes then I'll see what I can do about the ones I don't like.**

 **I believe that's it. I hope you enjoy.**

* * *

After taking Nami's jacket off and tucking her into bed, Dr. Kureha goes back to her desk to see the liquid antibiotics meant for Nami's illness, that are being boiled, are now ready for the finishing touches. She turns off the heater for the medicine before she turns to her assistant who's in his human form. "I gotta say, these brats are pretty tough for making it out here on their own."

Chopper nods as he's placing the bandages on Rose's shirtless torso just below her cotton bra while she's unconscious. "Yea, from the looks of these injuries they must have faced the lapins. I wonder how they survived."

Once Chopper places the last bandage on his patient, he puts a short sleeved t-shirt on her, gently lays her down on the bed, and turns his attention to the scratches and bruises on her arms, neck, and right cheek. _*These marks don't look like they came from the trek up here. The oldest ones look to be about a few weeks old. I wonder what happened.*_

He goes over to the medical bag on the desk while Dr. Kureha finishes mixing the cooled down antibiotics and fills a needle with it. "This should do the trick. Chopper, answer this: what kind of bug gave the redhead that bite on her stomach?"

Chopper goes over to Nami to look at her stomach, then widens his eyes at the bite. "That's a casha bite!"

She nods as she walks over to Nami, sticks the needle in her arm, then inserts the medicine into her bloodstream. "Very good."

Chopper looks at her in utter shock. "I thought those bugs were extinct!"

"Looks like that's not the case. They probably went to an ancient island where they still thrived or something like that. How's the other one doing?"

Chopper remembers what he was doing then starts digging into his medical bag again. "She has a bad scrape on her back, as well as frost bite, and a few bruised ribs on her left side. There are also scratches and bruises on her arms, neck, and a few on her cheek. I'm going to apply that ointment you made to make them go away faster."

Kureha quirks an eyebrow at the analysis as she goes over to where the brunette is sleeping, and looks over the marks. _*Hmm, a person definitely did this. That ointment should get rid of them in a day.*_

When Chopper grabbed the bottle of ointment from his bag, he walks up to the bed. However, Dr. Kureha quickly takes the bottle from him before he could do anything. "I'll take care of applying it on her. I need you to hold her down. While this is effective, it burns like a bitch on scratches."

Chopper nods as he gently holds their patient down by the shoulders. Kureha pours some of the ointment on her hand and starts roughly applying it on her right arm.

Rose groans as she flinches from the burning pain and tries to grab her arm, but Chopper's making sure that she stays in place by holding her down.

Kureha finishes applying it on one arm, then looks over the gasping girl to see that she's still asleep. "She's definitely a tough one. Even when unconscious, a normal girl would at least yell from the pain. That should make things easy."

She applies the ointment on her other arm causing Rose to start squirming again while Chopper keeps holding her down.

Rose grits her teeth in her sleep as she tries to turn and move her arms, but Chopper keeps her arms down so that she doesn't move. She kicks her legs to try to do womething, but the doctor stays by the girl's upper body so that she doesn't get hit. The wind girl groans at the burning pain in her sleep, as she keeps trying to move as she reaches the point where she can't take the pain anymore. "LEAVE ME ALONE!"

Chopper and Dr. Kureha widen their eyes when they feel a strong gust of wind blow off her and send them flying off her. The wind quickly fades before the doctors can hit the wall, so they land on butts while they keep their shocked eyes on the bed that's holding the wind girl. Rose settles down while she's still gasping for breath as the burning pain starts fading away from her arms.

Chopper blinks at the sudden flight as he slowly gets up. "What was that?"

Kureha could only stare at the girl as she looks at the arms that she applied ointment on only to see that they dried up. "Looks like she's a devil fruit user. Whatever she did dried up the ointment on her arms to stop the burning."

She groans in frustration as she closes up the bottle. "This stuff doesn't work unless it stays applied for at least five minutes. Looks like we're gonna have to wait for her to wake up before we do any more with them. You took care of her other injuries?"

Chopper slowly nods as he keeps his eyes on the sleeping girl. "Y-yea, her body temperature's been slowly rising to normal levels and I treated all her other wounds. Is she really a devil fruit user like me?"

She shakes her head. "Her powers aren't like yours, but she's definitely some sort of monster. I'm going to check on the other two. Watch over the girls for a bit."

"Ok." He watches her leave, then goes to check on Nami's temperature. _*I can't believe she had the five day fever. It looks like the antibiotics are taking effect, but it'll take a while for her to fully recover.*_

He turns his attention to Rose, who's starting to scowl in her sleep. He looks at her softly as he goes over to her bed and tucks her blanket over her torso. _*So she's really a monster too? Those marks must've been from a painful experience… "Please take care of the redhead first."*_

He snaps out of his thoughts as he remembers Rose's request then goes back to monitoring Nami's condition.

* * *

 _It's a sunny day in New York as fourteen year old Rose sits alone at a table in the far corner of the courtyard on her first day of high school while she eats a peanut butter sandwich for lunch._

 _Once she finished her food, she started passing the time by reading the fifteenth volume of Inuyasha until the book was suddenly swiped by a pale, skinny girl with short black hair wearing a mini skirt, and a shirt that's short enough to show part of her stomach, who's standing in front of her table._

 _Three girls wearing similar clothes as the dark haired girl in front of them smirk over at Rose while their leader scowls at the manga._

 _"Are you seriously still reading a comic book Rose? How are we the same age?"_

 _All of the surrounding students in the courtyard look away from the conflict while Rose rolls her eyes at the bully's questions. "First off, it's a manga. Second, is what I read really your business Carrie?"_

 _"It is when you're embarrassing Marie and Laura with your weirdness! How can such amazing people like them deal with having you for a foster sister? Can't you learn to be a little more normal?"_

 _Rose narrows her eyes at the question as she takes the book and grabs her backpack. "Maybe when there are less bimbos like you around."_

 _The freckled girl walks away while Carrie goes to grab her, but one of her friends stops her._

 _The tan brunette points to the teacher that's staring at them while she whispers to her friend. "Not when there are teachers around!"_

 _Carrie groans at the situation as she nods as she watches scrawny girl leave. "Fine…"_

 _For the rest of the school, day Rose managed to avoid any conflict from her classmates. Once the final bell rang, she quickly left the classroom and went straight for her locker near the door to the courtyard._

 _Once she placed her backpack inside, she closed the door with a small smile as she thinks of how her day went. *Ok, besides the little spat at lunch today was pretty quiet. If I just avoid Marie, Laura and their cronies, I might be ok.*_

 _She starts walking past the courtyard door to get to the library when she's suddenly yanked by the arm by two girls and dragged outside to the courtyard. When she finally manages to pull herself free she finds herself cornered by Carrie and her three friends._

 _Carrie smirks at the scrawny tomboy in front of them she crosses her arms over her chest. "Glad to see you can join us."_

 _Rose groans at the confrontation as she looks around to see that they're the only ones in the courtyard. When she feels like she's being watched somewhere else, she looks up at the second floor window, and angrily narrows her at the sight of her two foster sisters smirking down at the skirmish. "I take it Marie and Laura ordered the show?"_

 _Carrie shakes her head at the assumption. "No, but I thought they would enjoy this so I invited them to watch. You know, I really wish that you had given up this anime and other world shit over the summer. I really am concerned about you, you know."_

 _Rose scoffs at the fake concern as she keeps her eyes on her. "Is that so?"_

 _"Absolutely, didn't you notice how throughout the day no one would talk to you unless they had to? No one would sit with you at lunch either, why do you think that is?"_

 _Rose grits her teeth at the questions when Carrie grabs her by the collar of her t-shirt. "It's because freaks don't belong here. All you can do is normal up or live the rest of your life alone."_

 _Rose pushes her away while she glares at the girls. "If those are my options then I'd rather be alone."_

 _The other girls mirror her glare while Carrie sighs in fake disappointment. "What a shame, I guess you can always go with the third option."_

 _Rose quirks an eyebrow at the option while Carrie continues to taunt her. "You can always disappear into those other worlds you always spouted on about as a kid. That is, unless you and your folks really are crazy like everyone says."_

 _Rose tightens her fists to the point where her short fingernails were digging into her skin before she tries to walk away, but one of the girls pushes her back._

 _Rose groans at how she's outnumbered as she tries her best to stay calm. "Carrie, let me leave before I beat the shit out of you and your friends. Or did you forget the last time I kicked your ass?"_

 _Carrie chuckles at the threat. "Oh I remember, even though you won nobody backed up your side of the story and you were the one that got punished. Even if you manage to beat us up, you're still screwed."_

 _The tan brunette, who's been quiet this whole time, steps up from the crowd. "It really is a shame. No matter what you do, you'll always be a lonely crazy girl with a-"_

 _She gets cut off when Rose grabs her arm and flips her over her shoulder. "Shut up Peggy!"_

 _Carrie watches the two other girls in her group simultaneously lunge at Rose causing her to side step as she grabs one of them to punch her in the face then was kicked in the side by another. She continues to dodge while the girl Rose flipped got up and punched her in the face then the others grabbed her arms to hold her back._

 _Rose groans as she struggles to get out of the hold while Carrie starts punching and kicking the front side of her body while Peggy does the same with her back. Rose manages to fight back by back kicking Peggy in the face, that causes her to keel over. Before she can deliver another kick, the two girls that are holding her arms step on her feet with all their weight to pin them down._

 _Rose keeps struggling while wincing when arms begin to feel like they're on fire. *Dammit, this is getting irritating! Wait, why do my arms feel like they're burning?!*_

 _Carrie takes a step back to laugh at the bruised up girl's predicament. "See what I mean? If you keep acting like a freak you're just going to stay alone forever. The sooner you accept that and normal up, the sooner you can have friends. I'll even be nice and help by getting rid of that creepy necklace for you."_

 _Rose widens her eyes when she pulls back to get her away from the crystal hanging from her neck, but the others are keeping a strong hold on her. "Don't you dare touch it!"_

 _Carrie ignores the warning and grabs onto her her parents' necklace._

 _When Rose sees that she's about to rip it off her, something inside the freckled girl just snaps as her anger takes over._ _"LEAVE ME ALONE!" She head butts Carrie before she can take the necklace off and knocks her out._

 _The two girls that have her trapped look at the brunette in utter shock as they accidentally loosen their grip on her. Rose takes advantage of the opportunity by freeing her right arm to punch the girl holding her left arm in the nose. The crony stumbles back from the blow as she grips her aching nose and frees Rose's left foot to kick, so she kick the other girl off._

 _Both girls lunged at her, but she dodged and grabbed one of them by the arm and punched her in the nose again then flipped her over her shoulder. She jumps back to dodge the last girl's punch before she grabs her by the arm, and knees her in the gut, before she gives her a cross punch to the nose to knock her unconscious._

 _Rose steps back from her attackers as she pants from exhaustion to give herself some space, and looks down at her necklace to see that it's perfectly safe. She grins in satisfaction before she looks up at where Marie and Laura are scowling down at her, and flips them off with both hands._

 _Laura scoffs at her victory as she walks away from the window with her sister._

 _Rose sighs in relief that it's all over as she loses her smile, puts her fingers down, and looks at her arms that are no longer hurting. *So much for a quiet day... What was with my arms? At least the burning sto-*_

 _She jolts when she hears someone clapping then turns around to see a slightly muscular, dark skinned, boy in shorts and a t-shirt applauding her by the door._

 _A pale girl with short red hair, and a tan boy with short dark hair, who are wearing t-shirts and shorts nervously look at Rose from behind their friend that's finished applauding. "Now that was a good fight. Looks like the rumors about you being a fighting monster are true Rose Catone."_

 _Rose furrows her eyebrows at the nickname as she keeps her guard up around the people she's never met before, and picks Peggy up to throw her onto her back. "Glad to confirm your suspicions. Excuse me, but I have to get them to the nurse."_

 _She starts walking to the door with a deep scowl on her face, but the boy who her applauded blocks her off. "Wait, don't be upset. It was a compliment. My name's Chris and I'm the president of the martial arts club."_

 _Rose quirks an eyebrow at the introduction. "Martial arts club? This school has one of those?"_

 _Chris nods with a smile before he points to his two friends. "Yea, the girl is Sarah and that guy is Hector. They're members too. Anyway, the reason I'm here is because I want you to join our club."_

 _Rose widens her eyes at the offer when Sarah and Hector pull Chris to the side and start whispering loudly._

 _"That's why you wanted to watch her fight?! Sure she's strong, but do you really want a crazy girl like that with us?!" Sarah asks._

 _Hector nods in agreement as he angrily whispers to his club president. "Haven't you heard the rumors about her?! She believes in some fake comet that goes to other worlds! Her parents were declared lunatics after their deaths because they researched the thing! Anyone who insults them gets a broken nose!"_

 _Chris sighs at their protests, but he doesn't waver from his decision. "I know, but we can't let this opportunity pass. We need strong ones like her, so we can start winning tournaments. We don't need to be friends with her, but we need her in our club!"_

 _Rose narrows her eyes at the group as she's able to hear the conversation as if they weren't talking behind her back. *Either these people really suck at whispering or my hearing's awesome. They're pretty rude, but still…*_

 _She stares at the ground in thought of the benefits of being in a martial arts club while Sarah nervously looks over at the brunette. "Yea, but-"_

 _"I'll join."_

 _All three of them jolt at Rose's answer then look to see her showing them a friendly smile as if they weren't saying mean things about her. "I'll join on two conditions: One, help me bring these jerks to the nurse. Two, back me up on my side of the story, so that I don't get suspended." *Even if I can't make friends, I can at least get stronger from this.*_

 _Chris nods as he goes over to pick Carrie up on his back with Sarah and Hector to reluctantly following his lead by helping with the last two girls._

 _Chris walks over to his new recruit with a happy smile. "You got a deal! We meet every Tuesday and Thursday after school at the small gym for about an hour. Will the timing be a problem?"_

 _She shakes her head as she starts heading inside. "No, that's perfect."_

 _"Great, we start tomorrow."_

 _Rose nods as she walks away when she accidentally overhears Hector whispering to Sarah. "Just you wait, having her around will just be a disaster for everyone…"_

 _The freckled girl softly frowns at the insult, but doesn't say anything, as she heads to the nurse to deal with her bullies with the help of her new club president._

* * *

Rose kept a small frown on her face from the dream as she continued sleeping while Nami slowly started waking up. She sat up and looked around the room then stopped when she saw a small two legged reindeer moving a book to the bookshelf. "Who are you?"

"AAH!" Chopper jumps back in fear as he drops the book and rushes to the doorway to hide with most of his body exposed.

Nami quirks an eyebrow at the failed attempt to hide. "Umm, you're hiding on the wrong side…"

Chopper corrects himself and hides most of his body with the doorway, which causes Nami to sweat drop at his actions. "You're a little too late now…"

"Shut up human!" Chopper angrily says but his anger quickly fades as he nervously stares at the redhead. "By the way, are you feeling any better?"

Nami widens her eyes at the question that came out of the reindeer's mouth. "Wait, you can talk?!"

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING CHOPPER?!" Chopper scrambles to run away from the room at the sound of Dr. Kureha's voice when she walks into the room with a bottle of liquor in her hand.

The old doctor looks down at Nami with a smirk as she opens the bottle. "Hahaha, so you've woken up have you? Are you feeling any better?"

Nami looks at the old woman in surprise when she sees her place a finger on her forehead. "Who are you?"

The old woman ignores her question as she takes a swig from her liquor, then nods in satisfaction. "Looks like your fever's coming down. The name's Dr. Kureha, but you can call me Doctorine."

"Doctor? So then this place-"

"You want to know the secret to my youth?"

Nami shakes her head at the doctor's random question. "No, not about that, but are we at the castle?"

"That's correct."

"What happened to the others?"

Dr. Kureha takes a swig of her booze before she points to the doorway behind her. "The boys are sleeping in the other room, and the girl's sleeping in the bed behind yours."

Nami quickly turns around to see Rose sleeping in a separate bed then quietly sighs in relief before Dr. Kureha sits down on the edge of the redhead's bed.

"Ok, let's see." She slightly lifts up the navigator's shirt to show the bug bite. "Looks like it's getting better too."

Nami widens her eyes at the big, red, bite on her stomach. "What the?!"

Dr. Kureha chuckles at her surprise before she explains what happened to her. "You were bitten by an insect called a casha. It's a deadly insect that lives in tropical forests. When it bites someone the bacteria spreads within the person's body. Then for five days that person will suffer with a high fever. This will then affect every part of your body. Judging from the bite my guess is that it's been three days since you've been bitten. If you had left this without treatment for two more days you would surely be dead."

Nami widened her eyes in shock while the doctor continued. "It used to have been known as the five day fever, but cashas were known to be extinct. You're lucky I knew how to make the antibiotics. Where'd you go to get that kind of bite anyway? Some ancient jungle?"

Nami widens her eyes at the question, when she remembers being bitten by a bug on Little Garden, before she relaxes. "Oh, so that's what happened."

Dr. Kureha quirks an eyebrow at her nonchalant attitude about everything. "That was your reaction to almost dying? That's kind of boring." She gets off the bed then pushes her patient back down. "Anyway, just go back to sleep. You're not completely cured yet."

"Thank you, but I feel fine now."

Dr. Kureha chuckles at her misplaced confidence in her healing. "Are you kidding? It takes ten days to cure this illness. Even with my wonderful medicine it will take at least three days."

Nami widens her eyes at the diagnosis as she sits up. "Three days?! We're in a hurry, we can't-"

She cuts herself off when she finds herself pinned to the bed by Dr. Kureha with a scalpel pointed at her neck.

The doctor gives her patient a sadistic smirk as she points the scalpel closer to her neck. "There are only two cases in which I let my patients leave. The first is when my patients die and the other is when my patient fully recovers. I'm sure you want the latter."

Nami gulps before she slowly nods, so Kureha takes the scalpel away and gets off her. "Good, then relax." She goes to take a seat at her desk while Nami groans in frustration and silently wonders how she can get out of this mess.

* * *

Chopper calms himself down in the room next door, where Luffy and Sanji are sleeping, then takes a look at Sanji's injuries. _*Looks like he's recovering well. It'll take a while for him to be completely healed though.*_

He walks over to Luffy then stares at the sleeping boy curiously as he remembers him running back for Rose. _*"I gotta go help my friend!"*_

He keeps his stare on Luffy until he hears the captain mumble something. "H-hun…"

Chopper steps closer to him, and listens curiously as he tries to make out what he says. "Hungry…"

Luffy slowly opens his eyes to see Chopper standing in front of him, and starts drooling from the potential food. "Meat…"

Chopper nervously scurries back until his back hits Sanji's bed.

"Venison stew needs to marinate in a pot for three hours in order for the meat to become nice and tender."

Chopper jolts at Sanji's voice as he slowly turns to the blonde to see him slowly smirking like the devil in his sleep.

Chopper slowly steps back when Luffy sits up with a waterfall of drool falling from his mouth. "Meat…"

The tiny reindeer trembles in fear when he feels the chef grab his arm. "Venison…"

Chopper yelped as he jumped away from the chef's grasp then quickly looked back and forth at the two pirates to see them slowly waking up. His heart sinks in fear before he makes a run for it with Luffy and Sanji grabbing onto his arms. "AAAH! HELP ME!"

Nami and Dr. Kureha turn to his screaming curiously when Chopper comes running into the room with both boys holding onto them.

"HOLD ON MEAT!" Luffy takes a bite of Chopper's arm, which makes the reindeer scream in terror, as he keeps running while he pulls his arm away from his mouth.

Sanji keeps running along the reindeer while he tries to catch him. "Hold on Luffy, I have to cook this guy first!"

Kureha watches the chase in amusement as it turns into a fight between her assistant and the two pirates. "I'm impressed, those boys recovered fast."

Nami blinks at the skirmish as she watches the reindeer curiously. "What kind of creature is that reindeer?"

Kureha takes a swig from her liquor then smirks at the question. "You want to know? He's just your average blue nosed reindeer. The only difference is that he ate the human human fruit."

Nami widens her eyes at the devil fruit then looks back at the fight between Chopper, Sanji and Luffy.

Rose groans from all the noise, and slowly wakes up to see the crazy fight happening between the three boys. _*Dammit guys, quit trying to eat Chopper!*_

She slowly sits up while Luffy and Sanji are fighting Chopper, but before she could say anything, the reindeer goes into heavy point to become a large man and punches both guys into the floor. "I'M NOT YOUR FOOD!"

Luffy and Sanji collapsed while Chopper went into brain point, to turn back into a two legged reindeer, and walked out of the room.

Rose places a hand over her mouth as she starts trembling from holding back from laughing. _*Hahahahaha! Oh my god, that was great!*_

Sanji and Luffy get up and smile in relief when they see that both Nami and Rose are up.

"Guys, you're awake!" Luffy says while Sanji runs up to the girls.

"How are you two feeling? Did your fever go down Nami?"

Nami nods at the chef's questions. "Yea, I'm feeling better."

Rose nods as she relaxes on her bed. "I'm feeling better too." She looks down at her scratched and bruised arms curiously when she feels them stinging, and remembers the feeling of them burning in her sleep. _*Did they try something with my arms when I was sleeping? Guess that could explain why I felt-*_

"Please join my crew old lady! I'm begging you!"

Rose snaps out of her thoughts to see Luffy confronting Dr. Kureha.

The doctor only relaxes at her desk then motions her hand for him to come closer. "You said your name was Luffy right?"

Luffy nods before she kicks him in his face. "You better watch your mouth! I'm only 139 years old!"

Sanji blinks at the assault that he didnt expect to see from the elderly woman. "That's one tough hag…"

Chopper hides by the doorway with most of his body revealed as he watches Dr. Kureha kick Sanji to send him flying into the wall.

Dr. Kureha settles back into her chair and glances back at Luffy. "You want me to be a pirate? Don't be stupid. I don't want to waste my time on the ocean."

Luffy widens his eyes at her refusal. "Oh come on! Don't you want an adventure? Join my crew old lady!"

"Didn't I tell you to watch your mouth brat?"

When Chopper heard the mention of pirates, he looks at the group of patients curiously. _*These guys are pirates?*_

Luffy and Sanji spot the little reindeer at the doorway which makes all three of them to look at each other in shock before Chopper makes a run for it.

"COME BACK HERE!" Luffy and Sanji yell before they run out of the room and into the snow covered hallways.

"JUST GIVE IT UP MEAT!" Luffy yells.

Chopper groans at the name as he keeps running. "I'M NOT YOUR MEAT DAMMIT!"

"DON'T WORRY LADIES, I'LL WHIP UP SOME VENISON STEW TO MAKE YOU FEEL BETTER!" Sanji yells as he looks around to see that the hallways of the castle are filled with snow. "What the? Why is it so cold in here?"

Luffy widens his eyes at the chilling temperature before he rubs his arms. "Cold!"

"Can you be any slower?!" Sanji asks before he brings his attention back to the chase. "Forget it; let's just focus on getting the reindeer."

Dr. Kureha grabs a bunch or random weapons from the walls, and goes after the running pirates to save her assistant. "I'LL MAKE SURE YOU'RE EATEN BEFORE YOU CAN EAT MY REINDEER!"

Luffy and Sanji widen their eyes at the flying weapons heading towards them as they narrowly dodge them and keep running. "AAAH! SCARY HAG!"

Sanji quickly dodges a knife that flew past his head before turning to Luffy. "Luffy, I don't think we should let her join the crew! Doctors don't normally try to kill their patients!"

Luffy nods in agreement as he dodges a sword and flying chicken before they continue to run for their lives.

Nami sweat drops at the chase before she lies down. "I don't want to eat anyone. I just want some peace and quiet…"

Rose chuckles at the display she just saw as if she's watching it for the first time. "Hehe, those two are nuts."

Nami turns to her then smiles in agreement. "Yea they are. Thanks for helping us by the way."

The brunette nods before she lays down. "Don't mention it; I'm just glad we made it."

Nami grins in agreement as she starts to relax when a gust of wind blows into the room and carries flying snowflakes inside. "Huh? Why is there snow in the castle?"

Rose turns to the door then sits back up. "I'll close it."

Before she can get herself off the bed, Chopper runs into the room and closes the door behind him. "Stay in bed!"

Both girls widen their eyes at seeing Chopper looking around for Luffy and Sanji before he turns his attention back to the girls. "You both still need to rest!"

Nami blinks at the order before she gives him a reassuring smile. "You don't need to worry. I feel a lot better."

Chopper shakes his head at the assumption. "Even though your fever's gone down, thanks to Doctorine's medicine, you still have the casha's bacteria in your body. You still need an injection and some more rest."

He turns his attention over to Rose. "And even though I treated your injuries you still need rest too. I also want to treat your arms later."

Rose widens her eyes at the comment before she nods to him. "Ok."

Nami grins at the small reindeer in gratitude for what he's doing for them. "Thank you for taking care of us."

Chopper widens his eyes at the gratitude before he yells at her. "SHUT UP!"

Rose and Nami look at him in confusion when Chopper suddenly starts dancing with a blush creeping onto his happy face. "I don't want any gratitude from stupid humans like you! Heehee, what makes you think I want your thanks?!"

Rose widens her eyes at the dance before she starts smiling widely and holding back from laughing. _*Oh my god, that's adorable!*_

Nami sweat drops at the dance that clearly shows how happy his is despite his harsh words. "You don't hide your feelings well do you?"

Chopper finishes dancing then looks at the girls curiously. "Are you two really pirates?"

Nami nods at the question. "Yea, I'm a pirate."

Rose however, shakes her head. "I'm not though; the others are giving me a ride."

Chopper tilts his head at the statement. "Really?"

Rose nods to confirm it, so she he turns his attention back to Nami. "Umm, do you have a pirate flag?"

"Yea, it's on our ship. Do you want to be a pirate?"

Chopper widens his eyes at the question before he scrambles backwards until he hits the bookshelf. "NO WAY! DON'T BE STUPID!"

Nami quietly sighs as she runs a hand through her hair. "Ok, I'm sorry." She starts relaxing before she smiles at the reindeer. "But, do you want to join the crew?"

Chopper widens his eyes at the question. "WHAT?!"

"I'm serious, please join us. If you come along, it could really help us out. Our ship needs a doctor."

Chopper quickly shakes his head at the offer. "No way! How can a reindeer live with humans?!"

Rose quirks an eyebrow at the question. "Don't you live with Dr. Kureha though?" _*Of course, it's hard to believe that she's really human…*_

"That's different, I'm learning from her! Besides, aren't you two scared of me? I'm a talking reindeer that can walk on two legs…"

Nami looks at him in confusion. "It sounds like you want us to be scared…"

Rose shakes her head at the question before she gives him a gentle smile. "You're too cute to be scary."

Chopper widens his eyes at the compliment before he hesitantly defends his refusal. "B-but, my nose is blue…"

Before the girls can say anything, the door sudden bursts open to Luffy and Sanji running in. "THERE YOU ARE!"

"AAAH!" Chopper makes a run for it out of the room with both pirates hot on his tail.

Rose widens her eyes at the scene as she remembers how the boys act when they finally realize that Chopper's a devil fruit user. Her bangs shadow over her eyes as she gets up with clenched fists, throws on her green jacket that they cleaned, and runs after them.

Nami tilts her head in confusion at the freckled girl's sudden departure. "What's with her?"

She snaps out of it to see Dr. Kureha walk into the room and take a seat. "So the girl ran after them too now? They're recovering faster than I thought."

The old woman sighs before she turns to Nami. "You're definitely not a cute little girl. You gave my reindeer a stupid idea without my permission right?"

Nami chuckles at the question as she relaxes in her seat on the bed. "Do I need your permission to flirt with a guy?"

Dr. Kureha widens her eyes at the question before laughing. "Hahaha, not at all. Take him with you if you can, but getting him to join won't be easy. He has a wound in his heart that even a doctor can't heal. I'll tell you the story if you want."

Nami nods as she listens intently to Dr. Kureha's story about Chopper's past.

* * *

Luffy and Sanji lost the reindeer as they wander into the snowy lobby for any leads.

Sanji stops when he sees the open door that's letting the snow in. "That explains why it's so cold in here. Come on Luffy, let's close it."

Luffy nods as they both rub their arms together and walk towards the door. "Why was it open in the first place?"

"DON'T CLOSE THAT DOOR!" The boys turn around to see Chopper on the second floor as he glares down at them.

Sanji shakes his head at the order and turns around. "Don't listen to him. It's freezing."

Luffy nods as he steps closer to the door. "Right."

Chopper starts growling as he transforms into his heavy point and breaks off the railing. "I SAID DON'T CLOSE IT! DON'T YOU PEOPLE UNDERSTAND?!"

Luffy widens his eyes at the falling railing as he jumps to the right to get out of the way. "Whoa, what's his problem?!"

Sanji looks up at the door, then spots something out of the ordinary on top of it. "Hey Luffy, look at this."

Luffy follows Sanji's gaze to the top of the open door to see a nest containing a small family of white birds inside. "Whoa, a snowbird's nest."

The chef nods as he stares at the nest with interest. "If we closed the door we would've destroyed the nest."

When Chopper sees that they understand the situation, he calms down, shrinks back into brain point, and watches Luffy and Sanji run away from the doorway to warm up.

Luffy stops then looks at Sanji in confusion when he finally recognizes that Chopper was talking. "Wait, didn't that reindeer talk?"

Sanji keeps warming himself as he realizes that he's right. "Yea, and he was able to walk on two legs…"

Both boys widen their eyes at the realization and look at each other in shock. "HE'S A MONS- WHOA!"

Chopper widens his eyes when he sees a gust of wind lift the boys up, flip them over, and slam them down on their heads.

"Assholes…"

Chopper turns around to Rose's voice, and sees her standing next to him as she glares down at the collapsed pirates. She quickly changes her face to a sweet smile when she looks down at Chopper, and picks the small reindeer up. "Let's get out of here before they recover doc."

"Umm, ok..." The reindeer shyly replies as he stares at the girl, who's walking away, with him with mixed emotions of shock and awe on his face.

Luffy rubs his head to get rid of the headache as he gets up and sees that they left. "What did she do that for?"

Sanji slowly gets up and stares at the direction they took. "I'm not sure, I think she didn't want us to call him a monster."

Luffy tilts his head at the thought before he smiles at how awesome the transforming monster is. "But he's so cool! Hey, let's get him to join us!"

Sanji nods in agreement as he starts walking away. "If it can make Rose-chan happy then do it. I'm going to make something to help Nami-san recover faster."

Luffy nods as he quickly runs off to try to catch up to Rose and Chopper.

* * *

Rose walks into what appears to be a small medical lab, then sets Chopper down with a small smile. "Sorry about those two doc. They can be insensitive sometimes, but they're good people."

Chopper blinks at her kindness before he steps back and looks at her nervously. "Did you really flip them? And why do you keep calling me doc?"

Rose chuckles at the questions as she lists off her answers. "First off, yes, I flipped them with my devil fruit. Second, I called you that because it's a cool nickname for doctors. If you want me to stop calling you that then just say the word."

He starts blushing before he begins grinning like a clown while dancing. "Stupid human, why would I want to be called something cool like doc?! That doesn't make me happy at all!"

Rose giggles at the cute dance before Chopper looks at her curiously. "What kind of devil fruit did you eat?"

"I ate the wind wind fruit, though I'm still pretty new to being a devil fruit user."

Chopper nods before he sadly stares at her arms arms that still show the scratches and bruises. "I'm sorry."

Rose tilts her head at the apology. "What for?"

"Doctorine and I tried to treat your arms with an ointment that makes marks like those go away when you were sleeping. While it works great, it really hurts."

Rose blinks at the explanation before she looks down at her arms. _*So that's why I felt my arms burning in my sleep.*_

She freezes when she processes what he said before she looks at him in confusion. "Wait, you said that you tried to?"

He slowly nods as he remembers getting sent flying. "Yea, when we were applying it you used your wind to push us away and dry up the ointment to stop the burning."

Rose widens her eyes in horror before she frantically looks him over for injuries. "I did what?! I'm so sorry! I didn't hurt you did I?!"

Chopper blinks in surprise before he shakes his head. "No, but you dried up the ointment before it can take effect. Can we try again? I have a bottle of the ointment here."

Rose nods as she takes off her jacket.

Chopper looks over the desks various bottles as he finds a bottle that holds the same ointment that they tried before. "It's going to sting, but after five minutes we can get it off."

Rose places the jacket on the back of the chair and takes a seat before she holds her hand out for the ointment. "Ok, I can take care of getting the ointment on."

The blue nosed reindeer quickly shakes his head as he goes into heavy point and walks over to her. "No way, as a doctor it's my job to finish treating my patient!"

Rose blinks at the stubbornness to treat her marks before she quietly sighs in defeat. "Alright, you're the doc."

Chopper grins at the nickname before he applies the ointment on her arms.

Once the ointment made contact on her skin she immediately stiffens at the intense pain that came with it. She clenches her teeth and fists as she holds back from yelling in pain and tries hard to stay still. _*Holy shit, and I thought Neosporin stung! No wonder I felt it in my sleep!*_

Chopper notices her tension and looks down at the freckled girl softly. "Sorry, I promise it'll be done soon."

Rose slowly nods while she forces herself to smile to ease his worries. "Ok… Oh right, I didn't tell you my name, I'm Rose."

"I'm Chopper, how come you're travelling with pirates?"

She tries her best to relax on the chair as she answers his question. "It's kind of a long story. I ran away from home and wound up on an island that they were visiting. When I asked them for a ride to Alabasta they were nice enough to take me with them."

Once he finishes rubbing the ointment on her arms, he nervously looks down at her when a single question comes to mind. "They… They were ok with your powers?"

Rose widens her eyes at the question about the crew before she gives him a big smile. "More than ok with it if you ask me. One of the pirates ate a devil fruit too."

Chopper looks at her in shock as he rubs the ointment on her neck and cheek. "Really?! Which one?"

Rose winces at the new burning pains before she pulls up a playful smirk. "Now where's the fun in giving you the answer? It's better if you see it for yourself. You ate the human human fruit right?"

Chopper slowly nods at the reminder of how he's different as he finishes applying the ointment. "Y-yea, I'm a talking reindeer that can grow big and small…"

"Cool!"

A look of shock was an understatement for the reindeer, as he stared at the excited girl to see no signs of her having any fear for his power. "W-what?"

"That's awesome, since you ate a zoan devil fruit you have three forms right? Is it ok if I see your third one?"

Chopper stares at the ground nervously while trying to find the right thing to say to the girl. "Umm, I-"

He cuts himself off when Luffy slams the door open. "There you are reindeer!"

"AAAH!" Chopper screams as he picks Rose up bridal style and runs away from the chasing captain.

Luffy doesn't give up as he chases after him and calls out to him. "Come back reindeer! Join my crew!"

The reindeer widens his eyes at the sudden offer to be a pirate before he runs faster with the freckled girl in his arms. "No way, I don't want to!"

"What?! Rose, help me out!"

Rose blinks at the chase, she was dragged into, before she chuckles and waves back to Luffy. "Sorry, can't make him do anything he doesn't want to. Good luck."

"HEY!" He groans in frustration as he runs after the humanoid reindeer carrying Rose, without knowing that the former king of Drum Island was on his way to the castle.

TO BE CONTINUED


	7. Chapter 7

After finding out that Dr. Kureha wasn't in Cocoa Weed, Dalton separated from Vivi and Usopp in an attempt to stop Wapol from staying here. While Vivi and Usopp continue to travel through the woods to find Dr. Kureha they were suddenly hit by the avalanche that the lapins caused. Vivi managed to escape by climbing up a large thick tree, but Usopp wasn't quick enough and was buried in the snow.

Once the snow stopped, Vivi jumped off the tree and started digging into the white powder to search for Usopp. "Hang on Usopp…" She pauses when she digs up a long nose then pulls it out along with the rest of the sniper's unconscious body. "Usopp, wake up!"

The long nosed man starts grumbling with a dazed smile on his face. "Please leave me alone Vivi. Ooh, what pretty light up ahead…"

The princess' eyes widen at what he said with tears filling them up. "NO USOPP, DON'T GO NEAR THE LIGHT!" She starts slapping him silly until he finally wakes up with his face as swollen as a beach ball from the harsh hits.

Usopp groans in pain as he gets up and looks around. "What happened?"

"There was an avalanche and you were almost frozen to death."

He widens his eyes at this before he rubs his swollen face. "What?! Thanks for saving me! Hey, why does my face feel so swollen?"

She jolts before she turns away from him and nervously walks ahead. "It- it's just frostbite! Anyway, we need to see if everyone is ok."

Usopp slowly nods at the explanation when a pile of snow next to them starts shuffling until a shirtless green haired man pops out of the snow.

"Ah!" Vivi and Usopp jump back in shock when Zoro stands up while he rubs his arms.

"S-so cold! I can't believe there was an avalanche. Oh well, this can be good training."

"Zoro?" The swordsman turns around to Usopp's voice to see the two people behind him.

"Huh? Vivi? And…" He looks at Usopp's swollen face in confusion then he widens his eyes at his long nose. "Oh, Usopp. What are you guys doing here?"

"That's what we want to know!" Usopp and Vivi say when they start shivering from the cold.

"Let's talk while we find a place to get warm!" Vivi says while the two boys nod and start walking in a random direction.

Zoro keeps rubbing his arms to gets warm as he turns to him. "To answer your question, I wanted to do something different with my training, so I went swimming."

Usopp widens his eyes in pure shock at the explanation. "YOU WENT SWIMMING IN WINTER?!"

"Yea, I went swimming in the river then I saw some fish. I thought that they could lead me to a village, so I swam after them. Then I got lost and walked into the forest when that avalanche hit me."

Vivi looks at him in shock before she looks back at the mountain with worry in her eyes. _*I hope Nami and the others are ok.*_

Usopp sweat drops at the story. "You're an idiot."

"Forget that. By the way, can I borrow your jacket Usopp?"

"No way."

Zoro starts groaning in frustration while he shivers from the cold. "Then can I at least borrow one of your shoes?"

Usopp shakes his head as he looks ahead. "Sorry, you're the one who did this to yourself. You gotta reap what you sow."

Before Zoro can retaliate, Vivi points ahead. "Hey guys, look! I think that's Big Horn!"

The guys look ahead to see the villagers grouped at the outskirts of the village with Wapol's soldiers blocking them off from where the avalanche had hit.

Zoro looks at the crowd in confusion as he walks up to one of the villagers. "What's going on?"

The middle aged man turns around then widens his eyes at Zoro's attire. "That should be my question! Why are you shirtless in this weather?!" He shakes his head before he points to where the soldiers are. "Never mind, Dalton is buried alive in the snow, but Wapol's men are keeping us from digging him out!"

Vivi looks at him in shock. "He's what?!" She, Usopp, and Zoro rush through the crowd to the front when the soldiers block them, and the rest of the crowd, off.

"It's obvious Dalton is dead, so just get out of here everyone!"

The crowd starts getting furious at the soldier's declaration.

"DON'T YOU FEEL ANYTHING?!"

"YOU WORKED UNDER DALTON ONCE DIDN'T YOU?!"

The soldier who called out to them snickers at the question. "We only work for Lord Wapol. Whoever defies our king must die and that includes traitors like Dalton!"

The crowd glares at them while Zoro stares at the noisy soldier. "I remember these guys; they attacked our ship yesterday right?"

Usopp nods. "Yea."

"So they're enemies right?"

Usopp looks at him in confusion. "Yea, but why do you-?"

Before Usopp can finish, Zoro runs up to the soldier that was bad mouthing Dalton and punches him in the face to leave everyone in a shocked stupor.

"Mr. Bushido?!" Vivi keeps a dumbfounded look on her face while the guards start glaring at the swordsman who's bent over the fallen soldier's body

The townspeople start looking at Zoro in concern. "Wait pirate, they'll kill you if-"

Zoro takes the soldier's jacket, shoes, and gloves and puts them on before he sighs in content. "Ah, much better."

The villagers face plant at the sight while Usopp looks at him in disbelief. "You just wanted his clothes?!"

"KILL HIM!"

Usopp snaps out of it to the guards' voices then turns to see the small army charging at them. "Forget it, just fight them off Zoro!"

Zoro looks at the charging soldiers at him and smirks. "Hmph, now this'll be fun."

He takes the knocked out soldier's sword and begins his battle against Drum Island's soldiers. The civilians look at the fight in shock before they grab their shovels and rush to dig Dalton out of the snow while Zoro was beating the shit out of the guards.

* * *

At the top of the mountain in Dr. Kureha's castle, Chopper continues his chase from Luffy with Rose in his arms until he turns a corner, runs back into the lab where they started, and almost closes the door all the way with his foot. He and Rose watched through the crack in the door as Luffy ran past the room and continued running down the hall in hopes of finding them.

As soon as he knew that Luffy was gone, Chopper sighed in relief. "Finally, I thought I'd never lose him."

Rose nods as she stares out the door. "If Luffy's anything, he's persistent."

Chopper pauses as he remembers that he's still carrying Rose then puts her down. "Sorry, I shouldn't have dragged you into the chase!"

Rose quickly shakes her head before she giggles at the fun chase. "Don't be, that was really fun. This was probably the second craziest chase I've ever been in."

Chopper tilts his head in confusion before he changes back into brain point. "The second?"

"Yea, I was chased by a giant dinosaur a few days ago."

His eyes bug out in utter shock at the easygoing answer. "WHAT?!"

She nods before she giggles at the memory. "Yea, I had to shake him twice before he gave up on me."

She pauses before she strokes her chin in thought. "Actually, the second craziest was probably when I got chased by those lapins so I guess this is the third craziest." _*Has it really not been a week yet? Man, I love this world.*_

Chopper looks at her in pure awe. "W-wow…"

Rose grins down at him before she looks at her arms that are still burning from the ointment. "Hey doc, is it ok if I dry this ointment off now?"

Chopper widens his eyes at the question before he quickly nods. "Yea, it should be ok now. By tomorrow morning they should be completely gone."

The wind girl slightly widens her eyes at the news that her scars from her foster family's abuse will fade so quickly before she brightly smiles at him. "Really?! That's great, thank you!"

She couldn't help her excitement as the large grin stays on her face while she blows wind off her body to dry the ointment off her arms, neck and cheek. _*I can't wait for all these marks to finally disappear! Now I won't have to deal with everyone's stares anymore!*_

Chopper begins to feel a pleasant, warm, breeze blowing off her and brushing through his fur before he softly grins at the warmth. "Wow, what a warm breeze."

Rose blinks in surprise at the comment before her wind fades away. "My wind was warm?"

The reindeer nods before he looks at her in confusion. "You didn't feel it?"

She shakes her head before she looks down at her arms. "No, I just felt the wind blowing off me." _*Maybe it's because of the burning.*_

She shrugs to herself while Chopper nervously looks out the hallway for any signs of Luffy and sees that the coast is clear. "The infirmary you were staying in is five doors down the hall to the left. You should go back to bed and rest. Your injuries still haven't fully healed yet."

The brunette nods in agreement as she grabs her jacket from the back of the chair. "Sounds good, you should go find a better place to hide too before Luffy gets back."

Chopper didn't need to be told twice as he runs in the opposite direction of the infirmary.

Rose giggles at the fun she just had before she walks out of the room.

"ROSE!"

The freckled girl pauses to see Luffy run up to her then he looks around the halls frantically. "Where's the reindeer?!"

Rose casually shrugs at the question. "Don't know, after we lost you he ordered me back to the infirmary before he ran off on his own."

Luffy widens his eyes at the explanation before he starts pouting. "Aww, why do you get to be close to him?"

"Cause I didn't try to eat him after he treated my injuries."

"But I don't want to eat him anymore. I want him in my crew."

Rose chuckles at his reaction before she points at the direction that Chopper took. "In that case, try calling him by his name instead of 'reindeer'."

Luffy blinks in surprise before he nods with a toothy grin. "Got it, what was his name again?"

"His name's Chopper. He seems to also like being called doc so you can try that too."

He shakes his head at the suggestion. "I like Chopper better. Thanks Rose."

"Anytime, but please try not to-"

Luffy runs off to try to find Chopper again before she finishes, so she stares at his direction blankly. "And now I'm talking to the air..." She sighs as she scratches the back of her head and starts walking away. "As long as he doesn't call him a monster again it's fine."

She walks back into the infirmary to see Nami listening to Dr. Kureha's story intently. "So he kicked Chopper out so that he wouldn't watch him die…"

Kureha nods as she takes a swig of her liquor. "Hiruluk then begged for my help so that he could live a little longer and finish his research."

Rose's eyes soften at the old woman's story. _*So they're talking about Chopper's past with Dr. Hiruluk…*_

Nami pauses at the sound of the door moving then notices Rose in the room. "There you are Rose. What happened with the others?"

Rose snaps out of her thoughts then shrugs as she walks to her bed. "Nothing much, Luffy's still on his chase. Not sure where Sanji is though."

Dr. Kureha pointed out of the room with her thumb. "He's using my kitchen to make some food."

Rose sits down on the bed and wraps the blanket around her. "I see." She turns to Nami as she gets comfortable. "You guys were talking about Chopper's past?"

Nami nods as she starts explaining what she missed. "Yea, there was a doctor with a terminal illness who saved Chopper's life and took him in. When his injuries were completely healed the doctor kicked him out, but he only did it so that Chopper wouldn't watch him die from the disease."

Rose nods at the recap before she turns to Dr. Kureha. "I take it Chopper found out about the illness?"

Dr. Kureha takes another swig of her alcohol before she slowly nods. "He did, and he decided to try and find a way to cure Hiruluk himself. He even faced the herd that abandoned him in order to obtain a mushroom that he believed could cure every illness."

Rose softens her expression at the story as she joins Nami in listening to every word of Chopper's painful past.

* * *

Chopper manages to hide behind a few boxes in a storage room just before Luffy opens the door. "Hey Chopper, are you in here?! Join my pirate crew!"

Chopper covers his mouth to make sure that he stays silent while Luffy looks at the table filled with fruit with excitement. "Alright, food!"

"Hm?" Chopper looks over the boxes to see Luffy munching on as much fruit as he can eat with his back to the little reindeer.

"Awesome!"

Chopper could only stare at the pirate captain before he nervously speaks up. "Umm, are you really a pirate?"

Luffy stops eating then turns around with a big grin. "Yup."

"Is it really that great to be a pirate?"

"Of course it is. We do a lot of fun stuff like fishing, singing, and we go a lot of fun adventures."

Chopper blinks in surprise before he slowly walks out of his hiding spot. "Pirates really go on adventures?"

"Yea, being a pirate is the best thing in the world. You can find out how fun it is if you join us."

Chopper snaps out of his daze before he shakes his head and runs away. "I don't want to join so just give up on me!"

Luffy looks at him in shock before he runs after him again. "Come back here Chopper! Just join us!"

"I said no!" _*I shouldn't have asked him about pirates, now he won't stop. Still, he sounds just like the pirates that Dr. Hiruluk told me about…*_ Chopper continues running relentlessly with Luffy on his tail until he picks up a familiar scent.

"What?" The reindeer skids to a stop while Luffy couldn't stop quick enough and slides past him to crash into a wall.

Luffy sits up to see Chopper sniffing the air then he furrows his eyebrows at the scent.

"Wapol…" He transforms into a four legged reindeer and runs away while Luffy looks at him with stars in his eyes.

"Whoa, he can turn into a real reindeer too?! That's awesome!"

He quickly stands up and tries his best to catch up to Chopper, who's already a mile ahead of him and in the infirmary where the girls are just after they finished the story. "Doctorine, Wapol's back!"

Rose and Nami freeze at the name while Dr. Kureha smirks and stands up. "He is huh? Let's go take care of him."

Chopper nods as he and Dr. Kureha run out of the room just as Sanji walks in with a tray of food. "Where are they going?"

Rose smirks at the upcoming fight as she throws the blanket off, gets up, and runs to the door. "They went out to face Wapol, I'm gonna back them up!"

Nami and Sanji widen their eyes at this before Sanji places the tray down on the table next to Nami's bed then grabs his jacket. "Please enjoy the meal while I go help Rose out Nami."

The red head slowly nods as she watches him run out and stares at the open door when Luffy runs in. "Where's Chop-"

He looks around to see that she's the only one in the room. "Where is everybody?"

"Outside."

Luffy nods as he runs out causing her eyes to widen. "YOU FORGOT YOUR JACKET AGAIN!"

* * *

After defeating all the lapins in the forest, Wapol and his two lackeys have finished riding their hippo onto the mountain's peak to see the castle waiting for him.

Wapol smirks up at the palace with pride. "Just look at it men! It hasn't changed a bit! I can finally reclaim my throne!"

Tears form in Chess' eyes as he kneels in front of his king. "It was only a matter of time sire."

Kuromarimo joins his fellow servant in kneeling until he spots something at the top of the castle. "Hold on Lord Wapol, there's a strange flag at the top of the castle."

Wapol looks at the top of the castle in confusion to see a black flag standing there with a skull and crossbones on the center with cherry blossoms surrounding it. "What the hell's a pirate flag doing up there?! Where's Drum Island's flag?!"

"Hahahaha, I burnt that flag a long time ago."

Wapol, Chess and Kuromarimo widen their eyes at Dr. Kureha's voice as she walks out of the castle with Chopper.

Wapol grits his teeth in fury as he glares at the doctor. "So you finally showed up at last Dr. Kureha. What do you think you're doing here?!"

Dr. Kureha snickers at the false king. "This place is Hiruluk's tomb now. It's not a place for spoiled kids like you. Just get out of here."

The iron jawed man looks at her in utter shock. "YOU'RE CALLING MY HOME THAT STUPID QUACK'S TOMB?! THAT'S NOT FUNNY!"

Chopper starts growling at the insults to his adoptive parent when Rose runs outside with Luffy and Sanji right behind her.

Rose finds the former king in front of them before she silently glares at him.

Luffy widens his eyes when he sees Wapol. "It's you!"

Sanji groans at the sight of the king in front of him. "What the hell are they doing here?"

Luffy bares his teeth as he starts getting his fists ready. "You really pissed me off before!"

Wapol looks at Luffy in utter shock when he stretches his arm back. "GUM GUM PISTOL!"

The others only stared as Luffy stretched his arm forward and punched Wapol straight in the face as hard as he can to send him flying.

Chopper was completely slack jawed at the punch while Dr. Kureha widened her eyes at the display. "What just happened?"

Rose chuckles at the reactions while she points at Wapol who's about to fall off the mountain. "Luffy just sent Wapol flying."

"LORD WAPOL!" Chess and Kuromarimo managed to grab their king by the legs just before he fell off the mountain so that he was hanging upside down from the ledge.

They quickly pulled him back onto the mountain as he groaned in pain. "Ugh, that was close…"

Wapol stays down to recover while Luffy speaks up. "You guys treated me and my friends really badly last time."

The two soldiers look at him in shock as he starts getting his fists ready while smiling from ear to ear. "And this time you're not gonna get away with it."

Kuromarimo starts glaring at him as he gets in a stance. "How dare you hurt Lord Wapol?! Don't you know he's the king?!"

Chess nods as he points to his shell shocked king. "That's right; he's the leader of this country! Fighting against him means certain death!"

Luffy sticks his tongue out in response. "So what if he's a king? I still hate all of you!"

Rose holds back from chuckling at Luffy's childish antics while Dr. Kureha looks at them in confusion. "Wait, you guys know them?"

Luffy nods as he points to them. "Yea, they're a bunch of annoying pirates who tried to stop us from coming here. That metal guy even tried to eat my ship. This time I'm going to beat the crap out of them!"

Sanji puffs out a smoke from his cigarette before quirking an eyebrow at Luffy's attire. "I'm all for beating the shit out of these bastards, but aren't you cold in that?"

Luffy tilts his head in confusion before he looks at his clothes then looks at Wapol in shock. "Wait, they said that he's a king?! They're not pirates?!"

Kuromarimo looks at him in utter shock. "You just realized that he's a king?!"

Luffy ignores him and starts shivering. "It's cold!"

Sanji groans at his captain's ignorance. "That's what I was asking about!"

Chopper looks at him in confusion. "How can you just notice that it's cold out here?"

Chess was completely slack jawed at the group that's ignoring them. "Now they're just insulting us!"

"AAH!" Chess and Kuromarimo turn at their leader's voice in shock to see their king suddenly standing up. "Your Majesty!"

Wapol starts panting before he coughs up some blood. "You really made me mad now. I'm going to-." He blinks in confusion when he sees that Luffy's not with the group anymore. "WHERE DID HE GO?!"

Sanji casually points to the castle. "Just wait a second. He went inside to get a jacket."

He could only stare at them in shock while Chopper turns to Rose. "So that guy was the devil fruit user?"

Rose nods with a smile. "Yup, if I remember correctly he ate the gum gum fruit."

"The gum gum fruit?"

Sanji nods before he puffs a smoke from his cigarette. "That's right, that fruit turned him into a rubber man."

Chopper turns to him in confusion. "A rubber man? What does that mean?"

Sanji could only smile at the question. "It means that he's a monster."

Chopper could only stand there and be speechless at the answer. _*They really are ok with monsters...*_

Wapol scoffs at the group as he glares at them. "You know men, this is perfect. Everyone who's been opposing me all this time are all here. If we take care of them here and now there will be no one left to stop us from rebuilding my empire."

Chess nods as he gets his bow and arrows ready. "You're right Lord Wapol. Please step back while we take care of them."

Wapol complies to the request as he steps back with his arms crossed. "Very well, they're all yours, but the Straw Hat's mine."

Kuromarimo nods as he gets his boxing gloves up and smirks at the elderly woman. "I don't know what you were thinking before Dr. Kureha, but you got some guts for taking over the castle."

Dr. Kureha chuckles as she crosses her arms over her chest. "I actually don't want to live in a big castle like this, but this guy wants to stay here."

Chopper starts transforming into heavy point while she keeps explaining. "No matter how hard I try to convince him to leave, he insists on staying with the notion that this is Hiruluk's tomb."

Chess looks at the humanoid reindeer in shock when he recognizes him. "Lord Wapol, that's the monster that followed Hiruluk!"

Wapol widens his eyes at the large reindeer man. "You're right!"

Chopper clenches his fists at the ruthless men as he glares at them. "Doctor only wanted to help his country. This castle is his tomb and that flag is a symbol of his faith. There's no way I'm letting you into the castle and I won't let you take his flag down!"

Rose looks up at the flag and stares at it with a soft look on her face. _*Protecting Hiruluk's grave huh? Can't think of any better reason to fight.*_

She snaps out of her trance to Wapol's laughing which makes her glare at him.

"Hahaha, if you wanted to die that much then you should've-!" He was cut off when he was suddenly lifted into the air and slammed down on his back.

Wapol starts growling as he gets up and glares at Rose. "I'll make sure you get the worst death of them all!"

The brunette chuckles at the threat then starts smirking. "I'd like to see you try."

Sanji starts glaring at the king. "I'll kick your ass for threatening a lady. Are you going to fight too old lady?"

Dr. Kureha whacks him on the head for being called old before she steps back. "I'll lend a hand if you're in trouble."

Sanji groans as he cradles the newfound lump on his head. "Thanks…"

Kuromarimo glares at them as he gets his fists ready. "You disrespect this palace then you won't fight? You'll die first! Kuromarimo Static!"

He throws a fist in Dr. Kureha's direction causing a black hairball to go flying towards her, but before it reaches her Sanji blocks it with his leg. "Hey afro boy, a real man doesn't throw stuff at a lady."

The elderly doctor smiles at this. "Finally learning some manners are you?"

Kuromarimo smirks at the block. "Looks like you've fallen into my trap."

Rose widens her eyes at the hairball when she sees Sanji trying to shake it off. _*Shit, the static!*_

Sanji groans in frustration as he tries to shake the hairball off his leg, but it won't come off. "What the hell?! I can't get it off!"

Kuromarimo snickers as he starts getting more hairballs off his afro. "Why don't you have some more static?" He starts throwing more of them at Sanji while he's trying to shake it off.

However, Rose rushes in front of him and manages to create a gust of wind to block the hairballs and throw them back at them. "Taste this!"

Kuromarimo, Chess and Wapol widen their eyes at the return fire as they jump to the side to dodge the flying hairballs.

"I'll teach you brat!" Kuromarimo starts firing as many hairballs as he can at Rose while she keeps blocking them off with her wind.

Kuromarimo used the distraction to run in front of her and tried to punch her, but she side stepped to dodge and gave him a left hook to the nose. Kuromarimo growls as he continues his barrage of punches along with Rose.

Sanji keeps trying to shake it off, but without any luck. "Dammit, why won't it come off?! Don't just stand there and watch reindeer! Help me out!"

Chopper widens his eyes at the command before he runs up to him. "Right!"

He tries to get it off him, but it gets stuck on his furry arm, which makes him to flail his arms around. "Ahh! It's stuck on me now! I don't want it, take it back!"

He sticks it on Sanji's arm causing him to flail his arm to stick it back on him. "No way! It's just a ball, why don't you take it?!"

"If it's not a big deal then you just keep it!"

Dr. Kureha sweat drops at the childish argument she's watching. "What are they doing?"

Chess chuckles at that as he gets his flaming arrow ready to fire. "Your teamwork is pretty pathetic. Want to know a secret? That little ball can easily catch fire!"

Chopper and Sanji widen their eyes as they stop arguing and stare at the arrow. Chopper sticks the ball back on Sanji before running away. "Bait Plan!"

Sanji looks at him in shock as he tries to get the ball off. "You're going to use me as bait?!" He looks to see that the arrow was fired at him causing him to jump to the side to dodge.

Rose widens her eyes as she remembers what happens next before she got punched in the face by Kuromarimo. Before he could hit her again, she uses her wind to skyrocket him twenty feet into the air then starts flying towards Chess.

Chess gets another arrow ready for Sanji who's brushing his arm on the snow to get the hairball off when Chopper starts running up to him from the side and gets ready to backhand him. "Get out of here!"

Chess widens his eyes as he's about to get hit when Wapol appears out of nowhere in front of Chess with his mouth wide open. "Out of the way Chess!"

He goes to take a bite into Chopper when Rose pushes the reindeer out of the way and had her top half bitten, but his teeth only phased through her so that he only eats the air.

Rose pushes herself out of the mouth, and takes a step back from him to look at the king in pure disgust as she remembers the inside of his mouth. _*This guy needs to brush his teeth more, his breath almost made me puke… Wait, I flew when I actually wanted to?! AWESOME!*_

Rose pumps her fists in excitement while Chopper looks at her in shock. "Are you ok Rose?!"

She nods at him with a smile. "Yea, I'm good."

"You ruined my meals for the last time! You're both dead!" Wapol tries to take a bite into her again but she quickly dodges along with Chopper.

Sanji grits his teeth at the sight of Wapol trying to eat them, as he goes to join the fray, when Luffy runs outside in Nami's beige and red striped jacket. "Man, this is warm."

The chef looks back at Luffy and lifts his right leg up. "Luffy, grab my leg!"

Luffy looks at him in confusion but still stretches his arms back. "Your leg?! Ok!" He stretches his arm forward to grab onto his leg. "Like this right?"

"Yea, just like that!" He moves his leg and kicks it at Wapol's direction as hard as he can. "Rubber Shot Air Force!"

Luffy lets go of the leg to slingshot himself towards Wapol, who stopped himself from trying to eat the two people in front of him, to see the flying rubber man who's spinning to increase his power.

Rose widens her eyes when she sees Luffy flying in their direction, then picks Chopper up, and jumps out of the way just before Luffy flew straight at Wapol's stomach. Wapol was sent flying straight back while Luffy falls off of him to see that the king flew straight back into his hippo, that makes the poor animal take the rest of the force, and sent flying straight off the mountain.

Kuromarimo landed on his back right next to Chess who's staring at the group in utter horror. _*Who the hell are these guys?!*_

Rose runs back to Luffy and Sanji, sets Chopper down and turns to the boys with a large smile. "Thanks for the help. That move was awesome."

Chopper nods. "Yea, thank you. You guys are really strong."

Luffy nods before looking out at the forest. "Where did the hippo fly off to?"

Sanji shrugs before he gets a closer look at Luffy and sees that he's wearing Nami's jacket. "Hey Luffy, isn't that Nami's jacket?!"

"Yea so?"

"Take it off! You'll ruin it!"

Rose looks at the angry chef in confusion. "What's the big deal? We switched coats after the avalanche."

Sanji freezes at the comment before looks at her in utter shock. "We did what?!"

He starts thinking about Rose wearing his coat to the point where he starts fantasizing her shyly wearing it with a cute blush decorating her freckled cheeks. Hearts start forming in his eyes at the image that he can only see. "Aww, that's so cute~"

The hearts in his eyes break when he realizes that he missed it, so tears start filling them up. "Why do I always miss the good parts?!"

Rose face palms at Sanji's dramatics. _*I swear he's almost as big of a pervert as Jiraiya. I don't even want to guess what he's imagining…*_

Chopper looks at the chef in confusion while Luffy laughs at the blond's mood swings.

Kuromarimo gets up to see his unconscious king lying on the ground then goes up to him. "Are you ok Lord Wapol?!"

Chess looks down at his king apologetically. "We're so sorry, we underestimated them!"

Wapol groans as he starts waking up. "I'll kill them all…"

The servants step back as Wapol furiously sits up. "Men, let's show them the Chomp Chomp Factory!"

The group stops their conversation to see Wapol getting up.

Luffy blinks in surprise at the king's endurance. "He can still stand? He must be pretty strong."

Wapol growls at the pirates before he turns to Chess. "Chess, tell me what my menu was this morning."

The jester nods as he grabs a menu from his bag. "Yes sire, you had one baked cannon, one fresh cannon, and cannon balls salad with gun powder. Also, you ate a restaurant in the village."

Rose looks at the fake pirates in utter shock of what he ate today. _*No wonder his breath stunk!*_

Luffy sweat drops at the menu. "What a weird breakfast."

Sanji slowly nods as he stares at him. "There's nothing weirder than that."

Wapol ignores the comments as he smirks at them. "Take a good look at my power after I ate my breakfast."

Everyone, but his two servants, widen their eyes when they see his body starting to change. "Those things that I ate this morning have already been digested and became a part of my body. Munch Munch Shock Wapol House!"

Once his transformation completed, they all gape at the king to see that most of his body has turned into a small house, with his face showing at the top of it, and both of his arms have turned into cannons.

Sanji's cigarette fell out of his mouth as he stared at him. "He turned into a house?!"

Luffy was the only one that's looking at him in awe. "That's so cool!"

Wapol snickers at their reactions. "It's too soon to be surprised."

Everyone looks at him in confusion until he grabs his two servants and eats them.

"AAH!" Kuromarimo and Chess barely fought back as Wapol chewed them up and swallowed them.

Rose wanted to look away from the sickening sight in front of her, but she just couldn't. _*This son of a bitch actually did it… He ate his servants to combine them… He's so gross…*_

Chopper and Sanji were speechless at the display while Luffy was slack jawed. "He's eating his crew!"

Smoke starts flaring out of Wapol's cannon arms as he glares at the group. "Take a good look at what combined bodies can do?"

Chopper looks at him in confusion. "Combined bodies?"

The door on Wapol's body opened with a body coming out. "Hahaha, we're the strongest fighter in the kingdom!"

The group widens their eyes at Chess and Kuromarimo's combined voices as a body comes out to show Kuromarimo's and Chess' bodies have combined with Kuromarimo's head and arms on top of Chess'. "Say hello to Chessmarimo!"

Sanji sweat drops at the view in front of him. "Didn't the afro boy just sit on top of the jester?"

"Pretty much." Rose says while Luffy looks at the body with stars in his eyes.

"That's awesome!"

Sanji turns to him in irritation. "What part of that is awesome?!"

Dr. Kureha turns to them while she stays back. "You'd better not underestimate them."

Rose and Sanji turn to her while she continues. "If they were weak, then the villagers would have chased them out of here when they came back."

Wapol nods at the explanation. "At least you have that sense Dr. Kureha. After all, the first rule in my country is that whoever dares to defy the king must die. I am everything to this empire because this empire belongs to me, and so does this castle."

Everyone widens their eyes when Wapol suddenly raises his arms up and fire his cannons at the pirate flag. "That means I won't allow anyone to put up a stupid flag that belongs to that crazy doctor on the top of my palace! It only makes this place worthless!"

Rose tries to stop the cannon, but she her wind was neither quick nor strong enough to stop the cannon ball from blasting the flagpole off the castle. "Shit!"

She manages to create a gust to catch the falling flag before it completely fell off the castle. As she's keeping the flag in view, she starts baring her teeth as she glares at Wapol while air starts blowing out of her. _*He's lucky that the flag comes first right now or I'd beat the living shit out of him!*_

Sanji, who was standing the closest to Rose, turns to her in shock when he starts feeling a gust of wind that's as hot as humanly possible coming out of her. He silently looks down to see that the hot air starting to melt the snow under her just before it dies down. _*She can produce hot air?*_

Chopper could only stare at the flying flag in horror while Luffy looks up at the flag for the first time. "A pirate flag?" He sees Chopper staring at the flag with a dead look in his eyes, before he understands the situation and turns to Rose. "Rose, keep the flag up there for me."

Rose nods while she keeps her angry purple eyes on the flag so that it doesn't fall. "Got it." She keeps it flying up for Luffy as he starts scaling the castle when Chopper starts yelling at Wapol.

"WHY DID YOU DO THAT TO DOCTOR'S FLAG?!"

Wapol chuckles as the reindeer's distress. "Didn't I already tell you why? It makes the castle worthless. Kill him men."

Chessmarimo nods as they crack their knuckles. "Yes sir!"

Chopper charges at Wapol, but Chessmarimo block his path, but he dodges by going into brain point to run under them. He changes back into heavy point to jump onto Wapol so that he's face to face with him.

"Doctor… Doctor even thought about saving your life! Doesn't that mean anything to you?!" Wapol braces himself for the punch Chopper was about to give him, but he stopped himself. "I won't hurt you, so get out of this country!"

Wapol looks at him in confusion. "Huh?"

 _*Chopper…*_ Rose looks at him softly as she gives the flag to Luffy after he made it to the top.

Dr. Kureha glares at Chopper's merciful attitude. "What are you saying Chopper?! He won't leave just because you gave him mercy!"

Chopper turns to her with a distressed look on his face. "But…"

Wapol smirks at the defenseless reindeer as he gets his cannon ready for Chopper. Before he can hit the reindeer though, Rose uses her wind to lift Wapol up five feet into the air while Chopper quickly jumps off.

"You son of a bitch!" Rose slams him on his head as hard as she could while everyone looks at her in shock.

Wapol slowly gets up and glares at the girl who's running up to him, but Chessmarimo blocks her.

"Don't think I'll stand by while you attack my king!"

Rose goes to punch him, but stops when she starts hearing Luffy yelling. "HEY BIG MOUTH!"

Everyone looks up see that Luffy had broken a sleeve off his jacket to tie the flag back onto the top of the castle. He stands the flag up with pride before he glares down at Wapol and his men. "YOU'RE JUST A BUNCH OF FRAUDS! YOU BECAME PIRATES WITHOUT PREPARING TO RISK YOUR LIVES! YOU'LL NEVER UNDERSTAND THE REAL MEANING OF THIS FLAG!"

Chopper looks up at the man who fixed Dr. Hiruluk's symbol in awe. "He fixed the flag?"

Wapol quirks an eyebrow at the statement. "What's so important about that stupid flag anyway? It's just a stupid decoration for pirates!"

Luffy grips onto the flagpole tightly to hold back some of his anger. "THAT'S WHY YOU'RE A WORTHLESS PIECE OF CRAP!"

Wapol narrows his eyes at the insult. "What did you say?"

"THIS FLAG IS NOT SOMETHING YOU CAN JUST PLAY WITH!"

Wapol begins to growl as he gets his cannons ready. "You fool, why would a king play with that stupid flag anyway?! And who told you to put it up again?! DIDN'T I TELL YOU THAT THIS COUNTRY BELONGS TO ME?! IF YOU INSIST ON PUTTING THE FLAG UP THERE THEN I'LL JUST DESTROY IT COMPLETELY!" He fires the cannons at the flag again before anyone can react.

Sanji widens his eyes at the cannon shot. "Damn, he used the cannon again!"

Rose tries to pull the cannon back with her wind, but she growls in frustration when she sees that it's not working.

Chopper looks up in shock to see that Luffy's not moving. "GET OUT OF THE WAY!"

Luffy ignores Chopper's order as he stays with the flag. "What makes you think this flag can be destroyed?! It's a symbol of faith!"

He takes the blow from the cannon causing everyone to look up in shock as the smoke covers the top of the castle.

"LUFFY!" Sanji yells up to his captain when the smoke begins to clear to see that the captain still standing after taking the blow with the flag still in his hand.

Chopper widens his eyes at the sight as Luffy grips onto the flag. "See? This flag will never be broken."

Rose widens her eyes at the amazing sight of Luffy proudly standing to protect the pirate symbol. All she can do is stare up at him in awe of how determined he is to protect what's important to his friends no matter what it takes. "Wow…" _*The anime and the manga were only able to show a fraction of how amazing this sight is...*_

Chessmarimo looks at stubborn him in utter shock. "That guy's insane!"

Luffy makes sure that the flag can stand on its own before he looks down at them. "I don't know whose pirate flag this is, but this is a promise for life! YOU DON'T HAVE ANY RIGHT TO DESTROY THIS FLAG AND LAUGH ABOUT IT!"

Chessmarimo and Wapol step back in fear of Luffy's glare while Chopper continues to stare at the inspiring pirate captain. _*Pirates really are great.*_

"Hey, Chopper!" The humanoid reindeer snaps out of his trance to see Luffy smiling down at him. "I'm going to beat them up really soon! What are you going to do?"

Chopper looks at him in confusion. "Me?"

Wapol grits his teeth before getting the cannons ready again. "You idiots! If you really want to protect that stupid flag then I'll destroy you both!"

Rose glares at him, but before she could attack him she had to dodge Chessmarimo's punch. "Did you forget about us?!"

The wind girl grits her teeth as she dodges his attacks and starts fighting hand to hand with the combined man.

Sanji however, glares at the king as he gets ready to charge him. "That's enough!" He starts running to Wapol before he collapses after a sharp pain goes up his spine.

Dr. Kureha looks at the fallen pirate in confusion. "He dislocated his spine? Looks like he overdid it with that kick from earlier."

She kicks Sanji's back as hard as she can to put his spine back into place while she ignores his screams of pain. "AAH! DOCTOR STOP!" He falls unconscious from the pain while Wapol laughs at his suffering.

"Hahaha, serves you right blondie! I'll take care of you next!"

Chessmarimo jumps back to dodge Rose's kick then looks at Wapol in shock to see Chopper charging at him. "Lord Wapol, look out!" He runs to try to help his king, but Rose pulls him back with her wind and throws him at the castle wall.

Wapol looks at them in confusion only for Chopper to punch him in the gut. "THAT'S ENOUGH!"

Wapol coughs up some blood as he stumbles back but remains standing.

Luffy starts to smirk at the sight. "That's right, let's beat them up Chopper!"

Dr. Kureha begins to smirk at the reindeer's newfound strength as she towers over the unconscious chef. "You've finally shown your courage huh Chopper?"

Rose grinned at the sight when Chessmarimo recovered, came up at her from behind and punched her in the head to slam her down before he blocked Chopper's path to Wapol. "I won't let you lay another finger on Lord Wapol!"

Chopper goes into brain point while he continues ranting. "You're the snow monster that the villagers talk about right? What a pathetic loser you are! You don't have a single friend in this place, so why do you bother to help this country?!"

Rose glares at the antagonizing man as she struggles to get up when Chopper speaks up.

"Shut up! Even though I don't have anyone I'll continue to fight as long as Doctor's flag is still-!"

"HEY, WHO SAID THAT HE DOESN'T HAVE ANYONE?!" Everyone looks up to see Luffy ready to slingshot him down to where they were by pulling on the nearby roof. He pulls his arms to slingshot himself down. "HE HAS ME! I'M HIS FRIEND!"

He slingshots himself down at Chessmarimo and Wapol and send them flying from the blow.

Chopper stares at the collapsed captain in shock. "Are you ok?!"

Luffy nods with a toothy grin as he gets up. "I'm fine, my body's rubber."

"Oh right."

Luffy grins before pointing to Chessmarimo. "Hey Chopper, do you think you can take care of that guy?"

Chopper nods as he glares at the servant. "He's just a weakling to me."

Luffy smirks at the answer as he cracks his knuckles and gets ready to face the king. "It's a deal then."

Rose softly grins at the display of friendship, then slowly stands up, and picks Sanji up with her wind. "Dr. Kureha, I'm gonna take this guy to the infirmary. Got any objections?"

Dr. Kureha nods as she steps away from the flying boy. "No problem at all. I'll follow in after they're done."

Rose nods as she takes Sanji inside while Luffy and Chopper get ready for the fight of their lives against Wapol and Chessmarimo.

TO BE CONTINUED


	8. Chapter 8

After Zoro defeated Wapol's soldiers and the villagers managed to dig Dalton out of the snow, the twenty doctors that were freed from Wapol treated his injuries at his house.

The villagers are waiting outside his house anxiously for the news on Dalton's condition while the doctors are still treating him.

Vivi, Zoro and Usopp wait outside while the princess stares at the mountain before she turns to the guys. "Let's go to the top of the mountain."

Usopp and Zoro kept quiet as Vivi continued. "We can't just stay here knowing that the others dealt with the avalanche too. Besides, Wapol and his crew are following them up there and we don't even know if Dr. Kureha's there or not."

Usopp quietly sighs as he crosses his arms over his chest. "And you're worried about Dalton and Alabasta too right?"

Vivi widens her eyes at the question when the long nosed man looks her in the eye with a serious look on his face. "You worry too much Vivi. Luffy, Sanji and Rose will take care of Nami. They're probably at the mountain with Dr. Kureha right now."

Vivi blinks in surprise at Usopp's trust for their friends before she nods with a soft smile. "Thank you Usopp, I-"

"You're just afraid of climbing the mountain right?"

Vivi widens her eyes at Zoro's declaration while she watches the swordsman poke Usopp's forehead.

Usopp groans at getting caught while his knees start buckling. "Of course! There are snow monsters and flesh eating rabbits out there! Those guys will be fine!"

Zoro shakes his head as he crosses his arms over his chest. "Next time just tell the truth."

"Wait Dalton, you're still injured!" The trio widens their eyes at the one of the villagers' voices then turns to see Dalton forcing himself to walk out of his house.

Dalton keeps ignoring his countrymen's protests as he tries to keeps moving forward, but the villagers are blocking him. "Get out of my way! I have to get them out of this country!"

The villagers don't listen to him as they stand their ground.

"Please listen to us Dalton! It's too dangerous for you to fight right now."

Dalton continues to ignore everyone's pleas as he tries to move. "I have to get rid of them now! If I don't fight them now then this country has no chance to rebuild itself!"

The villagers look at him nervously as they keep blocking his path. "You can't fight them in your condition. That's suicide."

"I'll fight them, even if I have to risk my life. Don't try to stop me!"

Everyone was speechless at the declaration until Usopp walked up to Dalton and went down on his knees in front of him with his back to him. "Get on, I'll carry you to the castle."

Zoro quirks an eyebrow at the statement while Vivi looks at him in shock. "Usopp..."

The sniper ignores everyone's stares as he looks back at Dalton. "If you want to fight with all you've got then I can't just stand by. Get on Dalton."

Dalton was hesitant at first before he leaned his upper body onto Usopp's back to allow him to slowly drag him out of the village.

"Don't worry, I'll get you to the castle." Everyone from the village sweat drops at the sniper's statement as he struggles to keep Dalton's weight on his body.

Dalton huffs as he tries to get off of him, but he can't in his condition. "You can't carry me Usopp."

"Who says I can't?! Carrying you is nothing to me! Just trust me."

Zoro face palms at the sight before he walks up to Usopp and easily takes the large man off his crewmate's back and onto his shoulder. "You want to get to the top of the mountain right?"

Usopp widens his eyes as he watches Zoro walking ahead with Dalton before he furiously runs up to him and kicks his shin. "Stupid Zoro!"

Zoro groans as he steps away from him. "Hey, stop it!"

Usopp ignores him and angrily stomps on ahead while he grumbles under his breath. "Stupid Zoro, stealing my thunder… I was about to show them all my power…"

Zoro quietly sighs as he follows him. "Right, my bad."

Vivi hurriedly follows them when one of the villagers calls out to them. "Wait, give us thirty minutes!"

The group turns back in confusion as he continues talking. "If you want to go to the castle that badly then give us thirty minutes, so that we can fix a lift for you. It'll be a lot faster going that way."

Another villager looks at the man in confusion. "What are you talking about? We don't have enough rope to connect to the mountain."

"Actually, I found some rope tied around a tree near Gyasta yesterday."

The other villagers widen their eyes at this before they nod in agreement.

"If we can use that then it shouldn't be a problem for us fighting. We can join him too."

The others quickly nod at the suggestion.

"Yea, this is our country too!"

"Don't worry Dalton, we'll fight alongside you."

Dalton widens his eyes at the declarations before he softly grins at them. "Very well, let's work together then."

"Yea!" The villagers rush off to fix the lift while Vivi, Usopp and Zoro follow them and do whatever they can to get the lift up and running.

* * *

Thirty minutes later, Sanji slowly wakes up to see that he's in Rose's wind hold as she's taking him to the infirmary. "Rose-chan?! What happened?"

"You passed out after Dr. Kureha kicked your back to put your spine back in place. Luffy and Chopper are outside taking care of Wapol and Chessmarimo."

Sanji widens his eyes at this before he struggles in her wind. "Please put me down. I have to fight too."

Rose shakes her head as she keeps going. "Sorry Sanji, but you've done enough. Besides, you wouldn't want leave Nami all alone in the infirmary would you?"

Sanji freezes at the question concerning his favorite crewmate before he shakes his head. "Of course not! Lead the way!"

She nods as opens the door to the infirmary to see Nami out of bed with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders.

Nami jolts when the door opened, but she calms down when she sees Rose and Sanji at the door. "What are you two doing here?"

Rose points to Sanji while she keeps him floating. "Sanji dislocated his spine from fighting too much, so I'm bringing him in here to rest. What are you doing out of bed?"

"We're escaping, we can't stay here for three days. Vivi's worried enough about Alabasta as it is."

Rose quietly sighs. "I understand where you're coming from, but shouldn't we wait until the fight's over?"

Nami shakes her head as she walks out of the room. "No way, now's the perfect time while that crazy hag's distracted. Please help me, I feel completely fine now."

Sanji eagerly nods. "Of course, I'll do everything I can to assist you."

Rose sweat drops at the declaration from the injured man before she quietly sighs. "Alright, then let's-"

"WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO MY CASTLE?! WHY IS THERE SNOW EVERYWHERE?!"

Rose, Nami and Sanji widen their eyes at Wapol's voice before Rose throws Sanji onto the bed.

Sanji groans at the pain in his back from the throw while Rose turns to Nami and starts pushing her into the room while she whispers to her. "Quick, get inside and hide!"

The redhead doesn't listen as she grips the edges of the doorway to stop Rose from pushing her in. "Are you crazy?! Why do I-?!"

"Now what's this wind girl? Another friend of yours and Straw Hat's?" Both girls pause at the question and look down from the railing to see Wapol smirking up at them.

 _*So that's why she was trying to get me in the room…*_ Nami gulps before she waves her hand dismissively. "Who are you talking about? I don't know them."

Rose nods while she shifts her eyes everywhere and nervously smiles at him. "Y-yea, I don't know her at all… S-she's got nothing to do with Luffy and his crew…"

Nami widens her eyes at the terrible lie she just heard and sees that she's being serious. _*You gotta be kidding me… She's almost as bad of a liar as Luffy…*_

Wapol blinks at the lie and looks at them in confusion. "Really?"

Nami blinks in surprise at him believing before she nods. "Yea, I'm just passing by. You two know each other right? I'll leave you two alone then."

Rose eagerly nods as she waves her off. "See ya stranger…"

Wapol nods before he climbs up the pillar causing Rose and Nami to make a run for it with Wapol pursuing.

"YOU REALLY THINK I'D FALL FOR THAT CRAP?!"

Sanji widens his eyes at the yelling as he tries to get out of the bed but he collapses from the pain in back. "Shit, if he lays one finger on either of them I'll slice him and roast him!" He slowly crawls towards the door while the chase is going on in the hallways.

Wapol starts smirking at the girls as he starts gaining up on them. "You won't get away from me!"

"We'll see about that!" Rose looks back as they run down the stairs and gets ready to use her wind when Wapol tried to follow, but he's too big to get through the small hole leading to the stairway.

Both girls stop to see that he's stuck in the floor and they sweat drop at the sight.

Wapol groans in frustration as he struggles to free himself. "Dammit, I'm stuck! I've been eating too much. Only one thing left to do."

The girls widen their eyes in horror when they see him pull his lower lip over his face and starts eating the rest of his body to get himself out of the hole.

Rose goes to grab a spear from the wall while Nami watches the man eating himself until there's nothing left but his chin. "What is he?!"

"That's a very good question. My bet's on a cannibal." Rose manages to grab the spear from the wall when Wapol rearranges his body then reappears as a tall, skinny version of himself.

"You two can't get away from me now!" Wapol runs after the girls with him gaining on them by the second.

Just before Wapol can tackle Nami, Rose jumps to hit him on the back of the head as hard as she can with the blunt side of the spear to knock him down right next to Nami.

The redhead looks at him in shock, then jumps back to see Wapol standing up furiously. "I've had enough of you wind girl! You'll be the first to die!"

He charges at Rose who's getting in a stance. Before she can do anything though, Luffy runs in and stretches his leg to kick Wapol in the face to send him flying.

Rose blinks in surprise as she watches Wapol fly into the wall and lowers her guard. _*Aw man, I was about to do that. Oh well, I got some good hits on the asshole so I'm happy. Chopper should have taken care of Chessmarimo by now too.*_

Luffy looks at the skinny king in confusion as he brings his leg back. "How did he get so skinny?"

Rose shudders at the question as she remembers the transformation. "He ate himself and rearranged his bones to make himself skinny…"

Luffy widens his eyes at the statement before he sticks his tongue out in disgust. "Eww, that's-"

Nami cuts him off by whacking him on the head. "What did you do to my jacket?!"

Luffy widens his eyes as he remembers that he tore one of the sleeves off. "Umm..."

Rose gulps at her fury before she places a hand on Nami's shoulder to try calming her down. "Hang on Nami, it wasn't his fault! He used it for the greater good!"

Nami turns to her angrily while she points to Luffy. "I don't care about that! That jacket costs me almost thirty thousand beli! It doesn't have any resale value now!"

Luffy nervously steps back from his angry crewmate. "I'm sorry Nami, but the guy blasted me with a cannon!"

Nami quietly sighs as she turns to him with a calm smile. "It's fine Luffy, I knew that it wouldn't come back in good shape if I lent it to you." A mischievous gleam appears in her eyes as she starts smirking. "You just owe me three times the original price now."

Luffy widens his eyes at the payback. "What?! So that was your plan?!"

Rose chuckles at Nami's plot. _*I gotta say I'm impressed.*_

"I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS NONSENSE!"

The three of them turn to Wapol who's pointing to the large doors behind him. "Behind me is a weapon room that only I have the key for! There are more weapons in here than what you can imagine! If I eat those weapons, I'll become the ultimate human weapon!"

Rose widens her eyes in shock. _*Wait, did Nami take the key like in the anime?!*_

She gets ready to charge him as he reaches for the key on his belt, but he widens his eyes in shock when he couldn't find it.

"WHAT THE HELL?! WHERE'S THE KEY?!" He frantically searches for the key but he couldn't find it anywhere on him.

Rose stops herself then sighs in relief. _*That was close, glad I didn't mess that up. It looks like we're reaching the end now.*_

Luffy and Wapol stare at each other blankly before Wapol makes a run for it up the stairs. "I STILL HAVE ONE MORE TRICK ANYWAY!"

Luffy widens his eyes at his fleeing opponent before going after him. "HEY, DON'T RUN AWAY! STOP!"

Rose and Nami blink at the chase before Nami takes the key that she stole from Wapol out of her pocket. "So this key was supposed to go to the weapon room? I thought that it was for the treasure room. Too bad…"

Rose raises an eyebrow at the complaint when she realizes that she never saw her take the key. "When did you steal that from Wapol anyway?"

Nami begins to smirk with pride as she stuffs the key back into her pocket. "I have my ways."

Rose nods before she goes after the guys causing Nami to look at her in shock. "Wait, where are you going Rose?!"

Rose doesn't slow down on bit as she looks back at her with a smirk. "There's no way I'm missing the chance to watch a badass fight like this! You start escaping with Sanji, we'll catch up!"

Nami widens her eyes at her enthusiasm as she watches her run up the stairs. _*She isn't fazed by any of this at all. Is she really just a runaway?*_

"Nami- swan, are you alright?" Nami turns around to see Sanji crawling up to her.

"I'm ok Sanji, Luffy's taking care of the weirdo."

"What about Rose-chan?"

"She went to watch the fight."

"What?! Shit, what should we do?"

"I think those two can take care of themselves. We should focus on escaping before the hag comes back."

Sanji slowly nods while Nami wraps an arm around his shoulders. He happily smiles at the sideways hug as he wraps his arms around her so that she can take him out of the castle with her.

* * *

Wapol grits his teeth in rage as he continues running through the snow covered hallways with Luffy in pursuit.

"Stop running and face me!"

Wapol looks back to see Luffy not giving up then he slips on the snow. "Dammit!" He gets up and continues running until he reaches the highest room in the castle. "I'll never forgive them! I'll teach you all how to respect a king!"

He runs into the room where there's a large item at the center that's hidden under a sheet. He rushes to the sheet and pulls it off to reveal a large cannon. "Hahahaha! Behold the Royal Drum 7 Cannon!"

Just as he aims the cannon at the doorway Luffy runs in. "There you are! I'm going to kick your ass!"

Wapol could only smirk as he readies the cannon. "You're the one who's going to be beaten! Just die!"

Luffy widens his eyes as he braces himself for the cannon fire, but the only thing that he was met with was silence.

Wapol's eyes practically popped out of his sockets in shock before he tried to fire the cannon again, but he was met with the same result. Before either of them can react, a family of snowbirds hop out of the cannon.

Wapol runs over to the mouth of the cannon to see that there's a nest inside. "What the?! A birds nest?!"

Luffy chuckled at the bird that hopped onto the top of the cannon. "So there were more birds here."

A tick mark grows on the king's face as he glares at the bird on the cannon. "How dare you insult me you filthy bird?! Don't you know that I'm a king?!"

Before he can hit the bird Luffy runs up to him and grabs him by the face. "That's enough of this crap!"

Wapol tried to pull his hand away from his face but it was no use.

A smirk grew on the pirate's face as he pulled him closer. "I don't care if you're a king or a god. I don't care about what kind of person you are either. Cause I'm a pirate!"

Wapol widens his eyes as he keeps trying to pull his hand away from his face. "You don't care that I'm a king?! Ha, you're so wrong kid! Drum Empire is a member of the World Government! If you hurt me then you'll become the World Government's enemy!"

Luffy keeps a strong hold on his face as he narrows his eyes. "I've already told you that I don't care! This is a fight!"

Wapol widens his eyes at the statement. "You fool! You're better off dead!" He opens his mouth as wide as he can to try to eat him but Luffy's fingers stretched over his mouth to stop him from taking a bite out of him.

"Shishishi, just try and eat me."

"How about you eat this! Munch Munch Mouth Cannon!" A cannon came out of his mouth and was aimed directly at Luffy causing the pirate's eyes to widen.

"There's a cannon in your mouth?!"

Rose runs to the doorway and widens her eyes at the sight when Wapol fires the cannon, but Luffy dodges at the last second so the cannon ball starts coming at her.

"Holy shit!" She runs out of the way just when the cannon blasts through everything in its path.

Wapol smirks at the destruction while not noticing that he missed his target. "Hahaha, that's what you get for underestimating me!"

He stops laughing when he felt a rubber hand on his shoulder. "It looks like you're the one who's underestimating me!"

Rose looks through the hole in the wall to see Wapol turn back in shock to see that the cannon didn't scratch him.

 _*Yea, kick his ass!*_ Rose couldn't help but grin in excitement as she watches Luffy wind his arms up around Wapol's shoulders.

Wapol tries to get out of his hold but it was too strong. "Hey, what are you doing?! Let me go!"

Luffy ignores his protests as he gets ready. "GUM GUM SLINGSHOT!" He managed to send Wapol spinning before he sent him flying head first through the ceiling and was stuck mid way.

"Whoa!"

Luffy stops himself when he heard Rose's voice then notices that she's been watching the fight then grins at her. "Hey Rose, can you fly me onto the roof?"

"My pleasure!" She lifts him up with her wind then sends him flying out of the window and onto the roof.

She tries to fly after him to watch, but her wind wasn't working. _*Dammit, I guess it was a fluke before.*_

She sits up on the windowsill while facing the room and grabs on the edges to lean back and watch Wapol glaring at the pirate flag that's still standing on another tower.

He widens his eyes in fright when he sees Luffy smirking down at him while cracking his knuckles. "A person that's not prepared to risk his life doesn't have a right to mess with pirate flags!"

Wapol struggles to get out of the roof but he was completely stuck while Luffy pulls his arms as far back as he can. He looks at the pirate in utter horror before pleading for mercy. "Wait, if you let me go, I'll give you a position in my government!"

Luffy ignores the offer as he keeps pulling his arm back. "Gum Gum…"

Chopper watches the fight from outside in awe with Dr. Kureha after he defeated Chessmarimo. "Doctorine, Drum Island…"

Dr. Kureha nods as she watches the scene with a smirk. "The empire lost to the pirate's flag."

Wapol tears up as he watches Luffy pull his arms forward. "Wait, I'll make you the heir to the throne!"

Luffy continues to ignore him as he pulls his arms forward and punches him as hard as he can with both arms to send him flying off the island. "BAZOOKA!"

Rose widened her eyes at the rubble that started tumbling towards her from the attack before she pulled herself inside to dodge. Once she knew that she was safe she started laughing. "Hahaha, that was awesome!" _*I'd better get downstairs to meet with the others.*_

She runs out of the castle to see Chopper 'hiding' behind a tree while Dr. Kureha relaxes as she watches Usopp pushing Zoro out of the lift station.

Zoro groans in frustration as he pushes Usopp away from him. "Quit pushing me!"

Usopp stays hidden behind Zoro as he looks around nervously. "I'm just trying to support you."

"If you're that scared then just wait at the lift with the others."

"Who says I'm scared?!"

"Hey guys!" Usopp jumps in shock at Rose's voice as she walks up to them.

Once Usopp saw that it was Rose, he calmed down. "Don't scare me like-"

"YAAAH!" All three of them look up in shock to see Luffy slingshot himself towards them.

Zoro looks at him in utter shock. "What the hell's he doing?!"

Usopp widens his eyes in horror when he sees Luffy angrily falling towards them. "Why's he mad?!"

"I think he thinks that Zoro's a soldier, because of the jacket." Rose says as she blasts wind out of her hands to stop Luffy just before he crashes into them, and then drops him into the snow.

Dr. Kureha sweat drops at the view but remains silent as she watches the scene unfold.

Luffy sits up and brushes himself off before tilting his head in confusion. "Zoro? Usopp?" Once he realized that there wasn't an enemy around he started smiling. "For a second there I thought you were with that fake pirate because of the jacket."

Usopp and Zoro sweat drop at the explanation while Rose giggles just before Luffy turns to Usopp. "So you came here to see us? I thought you couldn't hike Usopp?"

Usopp calms down then smirks. "Are you kidding? There's no way a little mountain like this can stop me."

Vivi walks out of the lift station after hearing Luffy's voice then walks up to him "We made it here through the lift. Are Nami and Sanji alright?"

Luffy nods with a toothy grin as he ignores Usopp's lie. "Yup, they're both doing fine."

Vivi nods with a relaxed smile. "That's good to hear."

Zoro turns to Luffy in confusion. "What were you doing up at the top of the castle?"

"I chased that stupid king away."

"The thing that just flew was Wapol?!" Everyone turns to Dalton to see him weakly walking out of the lift station. "What about the two henchmen that were with him?!"

Luffy grins. "Oh, them? The reindeer took care of them." He turns to the others with an excited grin on his face. "Oh yea guys, we got a new crewmember!"

Usopp quirks an eyebrow in confusion. "Really?! Where is he?"

"He's over there!" Luffy points out to a nearby tree where Chopper is trying to hide.

Dalton looks at him in shock. _*Blue nose…*_

He widens his eyes when he remembers that he's the one that Dr. Hiruluk was looking after before he passed. _*So he's fighting for us then. Just as Dr. Hiruluk had…*_

He softly smiles at the reindeer before he bows on his hands and knees to everyone. "Thank you all so much. I promise that from now on Drum Island will become a better country."

Everyone stayed silent at his thanks when the rest of the villagers that came with them ran out of the lift station then spotted Chopper.

"Whoa, what's that?!"

"What kind of a creature is that?!"

"Is that a reindeer?! No, it's a monster!"

Chopper stiffens at the stares when he sees some of them pointing their guns at him.

Dalton looks at them in shock before going in front of them. "DON'T DO ANYTHING TO HIM!"

"But Dalton, he's a monster!"

Zoro widens his eyes when he starts feeling a blast of hot air then turns to the source to see Rose glaring at the villagers while getting her wind ready. "KNOCK IT OFF YOU-"

"AAAH! IT'S A MONSTER!" She freezes when she hears Usopp yelling then turns to Chopper to see him look at everyone in fright before he runs away with tears in his eyes.

Luffy drops at Chopper's fleeing before he whacks Usopp on the head. "You idiot! He's the new crewmember I was talking about!"

Usopp looks at him in shock. "What did you say?!"

Luffy ignores the question and runs after Chopper again.

Usopp can only stare at his leaving form as he tries to wrap his head around having a humanoid reindeer in his crew. "He really wants a monster to-?!"

"Usopp…" The sniper starts tensing up when he felt hot air blowing behind him. He slowly turns around to see Rose cracking her knuckles while giving him one of the scariest glares he's ever seen. "Want to know what a real monster does when she's pissed?"

Usopp gulped at the glare before he received a punch to the face, then was suddenly floating by a gust of hot air, and flipped head first into a pile of snow. Rose ignores everyone's shock as she runs off to go after Chopper.

Usopp tries pulling his face out of the snow while yelling out for help, but he's stuck.

Vivi widens her eyes at Rose's anger before pulling Usopp out of the snow. "Are you ok Usopp?"

Usopp spits the snow he got in his mouth out before he nods and rubs his aching nose. "Remind me not to call people monsters around her. At least my body got a little warm from her hot air."

Vivi widens her eyes at the statement when Dr. Kureha speaks up. "Everyone."

The villagers stiffen up when they see Dr. Kureha smirking at them. "Dr. Kureha!"

The doctor points her thumb to the castle behind her while keeping up her smirk. "For those of you that are ok, take the people that are hurt inside. And that means everyone ok?"

The villagers quickly nod as they take Dalton and whoever else was hurt inside.

Nami and Sanji watch the scene from behind a wall near the entrance then sit down to hide from the doctor.

Sanji smokes his cigarette while he ignores the pain in his back before he whispers to Nami. "I don't know Nami. I think we should let her keep treating us."

Nami shakes her head. "No way, we have to leave now. We already wasted too much time here. You want Vivi to stop worrying about her country right?"

"You know, when I said that everyone needs to go inside…"

Nami and Sanji stiffen at Dr. Kureha's voice from behind the wall before she kicks a hole through it just above their heads. "THAT INCLUDES YOU TOO!"

"AAAH!" Nami and Sanji jump back in terror before Dr. Kureha brings them back to the infirmary. As everyone else goes inside, Usopp stays outside to build a snowman while Zoro keeps guard for anymore soldiers.

* * *

"AAAH!" The villagers and Vivi shudder at the sound of Sanji's screams while Dr. Kureha is treating his back injuries while waiting in the next room with Nami and Dalton who are resting in bed after they were treated.

Once she completed her treatment, Sanji collapsed from the pain while Dr. Kureha walked out while drinking a bottle of rum. "Just as I thought, his injuries got worse from overdoing it."

She looked down at Dalton with a smirk. "Hey Dalton, do you know where the key to the weapon room is?"

Dalton quirks an eyebrow at the question. "Why do you need it?"

She turns away from him before she takes a swig from her alcohol. "It's none of your business."

Dalton sighs before sitting up. "Sorry, but Wapol carries the key with him. My best bet is that it flew off with him."

Dr. Kureha places the bottle down before sighing. "Really? Too bad."

Nami widens her eyes as she remembers that she stole the key before grinning. "Hey doctor, just so you know I'm not going to be paying you for the treatment. Also, can you let us leave so we can continue our journey now?"

Dr. Kureha widens her eyes at the statement before narrowing her eyes at her. "Are you kidding? I'm going to be taking all the treasure on your ship as payment. And you're going to be staying here for three days."

Vivi nods in agreement. "She's right Nami. You need to stay here until you're all better."

Nami shakes her head with a smile. "I'm all better now. I promise that I'm not lying. But…" She reaches into her pocket and shows Dr. Kureha the key to the weapons room with a smirk "You need the key to the weapon room right?"

Dalton looks at the key in utter shock. "That's the key! How did you get it?"

Dr. Kureha looks at Dalton in shock then back at Nami. "You stole that key from him?"

Nami nods. "Yup, it's the real deal. So how about making this the payment and letting us leave?"

Dr. Kureha narrows her eyes at the deal. "You're very brave to negotiate with me. You're not a good little girl at all."

Nami giggles at the insult as she dangles the key in front of her. "So that's a no then?"

"I didn't say that." She takes the key and starts making her way to the door. "I'll take this key as a payment for all of your medical expenses. However, as a doctor I can't let you leave until you're completely healed."

Nami widens her eyes in shock. "What?! Just give me back the key then!"

Dr. Kureha ignores her patient's complaining as she reaches the doorway then turns back to them. "Listen to me, I have things that I need to take care of downstairs. I'm going to leave this door open. In the closet there are some of my jackets and there's no one else going to be in the room but you guys. I managed to treat the blonde's injuries as well. Under no circumstances are you allowed to run away from here. Those of you that aren't injured follow me."

The villagers jolt at the command before they reluctantly follow her out of the room to help her, and leave the only ones in the room to be Vivi, Nami and Dalton.

Nami quirks an eyebrow at Dr. Kureha's statement. "I get the feeling that she wants us to take her jackets, take Sanji, and get out of here."

Vivi slowly nods. "That's what I heard too."

Dalton nods before he falls asleep.

Nami gets out of the bed and grabs a long black jacket from the closet. "By the way Vivi, what happened to the others?"

"Usopp and Zoro are outside while Luffy and Rose are out looking for the reindeer."

Nami blinks in surprise. "Oh really?"

"Yes, what's the story with the reindeer?"

"He's a doctor that was trained under Dr. Kureha. Luffy wants him to join the crew. Rose seems to have become friends with him too."

Vivi nods in agreement. "You're right about that. She got so mad at Usopp for calling him a monster that she punched him and slammed him into the snow."

Nami widens her eyes at that. "She did?"

"Yes, she was even mad enough to make hot air blow out of her."

Nami looks at her in shock. "She can do that?!"

Vivi slowly nods as she gets up with a sad look on her face. "Yes, I believe her power is starting to show her emotions when they're strong through the different temperatures in her wind. The way she became so furious after he and the villagers insulted the reindeer though… It was like she was a completely different person…"

Nami blinks in surprise before she looks out the window to see the snow falling under the evening sky. _*When she was listening to Dr. Kureha's story she had a sad look on her face too. Does her past relate to Chopper's in any way?*_

She shakes her head before heading to the door leading to Sanji's room. "We all have scars from our past. We shouldn't dig too deep into it if she's not ready to talk about it. Let's get Sanji and meet with the others."

Vivi widens her eyes at the statement before she follows Nami into the next room to help her bring the cook out. She wraps her arm around Sanji's waist on one side while Nami grabs his side from the other side in order to drag him out of the castle.

* * *

Rose continues to run around the mountain top in search for the blue nosed reindeer under the cold night sky. "Doc, where are you?! It's ok, no one's going to hurt you!"

She keeps searching for him until she looks up at the moon lit sky and spots a pair of antlers on the roof. "There he is!"

She starts running to get to the castle when her wind suddenly picks her up causing her to stumble before she regained her balance.

"Again?!" She face palms at how her powers are acting before she tiredly sighs. "At least this will get me up there faster." She focuses her wind to fly up to the roof then flies up next to the reindeer that's focused on the full moon. "There you are."

"Aah!" Chopper jumps back in shock before he widens his eyes at the flying girl. "You can fly?!"

She nods as she crosses her legs to make it look like she's sitting on a gust of wind. "Yup, though half the time my wind has a mind of it's own."

Chopper blinks in surprise before he looks at her with stars in his eyes. "Wow! Can you get me flying?!"

She nods as she focuses her wind to lift him up a few inches in the air.

The doctor happily smiles at the new experience as he kick his legs in mid air. "This is really cool!"

He blinks in surprise when he feels that the wind's temperature compared to how it was before. "It's weird though, your wind's not warm like before."

She quirks an eyebrow at the comment as she gently puts him down. "It's not?"

He shakes his head. "No, it's the same as the rest of the air."

Rose tilts her head in thought as she tries to figure out this new side of her powers. _*Hmm, when the wind was warm I was really happy about the news that my marks are going to disappear. Maybe it's something to do with my emotions.*_

She quietly sighs in frustration at the newfound ability. _*Great, the last thing I need is some kind of mood breeze…*_

Chopper looks at her frustration with concern in his eyes. "Are you ok?"

She snaps out of her thoughts then nods as she lands next to him and sits down. "Yea, I'm fine. Are you though? Those villagers were real jerks back there."

Chopper slowly nods with a sad look on his face. "Yea, I'm ok…"

Rose looks at him softly when they hear Luffy's voice. "HEY CHOPPER, WHERE ARE YOU?!"

The two of them look down at the front of the castle to see Luffy calling out to him. "COME ON CHOPPER! JOIN MY CREW!"

Usopp sighs as he works on his snowman. "Give it up Luffy, he just keeps running away."

Zoro nods as he watches his captain call out to the reindeer. "He might not want to be a pirate you know?"

Luffy turns to his first mate in shock. "How can you know that?! I want him in my crew!"

"THAT'S ONLY YOUR DECISION!"

Rose notices Chopper looking down at them softly because he really does want to join, but he's scared of saying yes.

The wind girl quietly sighs at her conflicted emotions as she looks down at the stubborn captain. "You know, Luffy's pretty stubborn. He won't stop just because he can't find you."

Chopper widens his eyes at that before he shakes his head. _*No, I can't join them! I really can't!*_

"CHOPPER! JOIN MY CREW!"

Chopper freezes at the command and looks down at the pirates sadly. "I can't join them. I don't belong."

"Who said?"

Chopper widens his eyes at the question then turns to Rose to see her getting up and gently smiling at him. "Who makes up rules like you can't belong somewhere? If you want to go with them then you should. If you don't then it's your call. I should get going, it looks like the crew's leaving soon. Thanks again for everything doc, and don't worry I won't tell the others where you are."

She starts heading towards the edge of the roof before Chopper grabs her pants.

Rose blinks in surprise as she looks down at him. "What's the matter?"

"Can I come down with you? If he's as persistent as you said then I should confront him."

Rose nods at the request before she picks him up and gets ready to jump off the roof. "Ok, you asked for it. Let's go!"

She jumps off the roof with the poor reindeer screaming in terror. "AAAAH!"

Zoro, Usopp and Luffy widen their eyes at the sight of Rose falling off the roof with Chopper clutching onto her for dear life. Before they can hit the ground Rose takes a deep breath and blows a strong gust of wind right below them to soften the landing.

Chopper looks at her in utter horror as he catches his breath. "Please don't do that again…"

Rose nods as she sets him down before she rubs the back of her head sheepishly. "Sorry about that. I'll be more careful."

Luffy laughs at the fall before he goes up to Chopper. "There you are Chopper! You showed yourself so that you can join my crew right?!"

Once Chopper calmed down he looked at Luffy nervously before he lowered his head. "I can't…"

Luffy looks at him in shock. "Why can't you? The life of a pirate is really fun!"

Usopp looks at him in disbelief. "I don't think that's the point…"

Nami, Vivi and Sanji make it outside while Chopper keeps his head down and continues. "I only came down to thank you for all your help…"

The three of them watched the exchange with the others when Chopper raises his head to show the sadness in his eyes. "Please listen to me! I'm a reindeer! I have hooves, horns and a blue nose!"

Rose and Nami look at him softly as he continues with tears in his eyes. "The truth is, I want to be a pirate, but I'm not human! I'm a monster! I can't be friends with humans! I only came here to thank you!"

He starts calming down as he looks back to the castle that's been his home for a long time. "Just to thank you for asking me. But, I plan to stay here and learn more. If you guys want to visit you're more than-"

"SHUT UP!" Chopper widens his eyes when he sees Luffy raising his arms up. "JOIN MY CREW!"

Chopper tears return to his eyes when he sees that he won't give up on him because he doesn't care about what he looks like, he still wants to be his friend. Everyone else softly smiles at him to show that they accept him as well as he yells back at Luffy. "OK, I'LL JOIN YOU!"

TO BE CONTINUED


	9. Chapter 9

Chopper ran back into the castle to say his goodbyes to Dr. Kureha while Vivi, Rose and the Straw Hats waited outside in the snowy night for the newest pirate.

Rose rolls up a large snowball to get started on a snowman as she thinks about what's to happen. _*So once Chopper says his goodbyes to Dr. Kureha we're out of here. I'm glad he decided not to leave without saying a word…*_

Rose stops making her snowman when she remembers the few friends in her world that she accidentally left behind and looks back at the castle sadly. _*Dammit, I suck. If I had known that I was leaving then I would've at least said something to Naomi, Timothy and Bob-*_

"How come we can't say goodbye to Dalton and the hag?" Rose snaps out of her trance to see Luffy sitting on his own giant snowball while talking to Nami.

Nami quietly sighs as she looks at the castle. "It's better if we let Chopper go by himself since this will be a very sad goodbye. Even though Dr. Kureha looks scary and mean, she's a kind person."

Usopp finishes up his snowman before he turn to Nami. "So we're leaving without saying a word?"

The navigator nods. "That's right; once Chopper comes back we're heading to Alabasta." She turns to Vivi with a smile. "I hope that's fine with you Vivi."

Vivi quickly nods with a reassuring smile. "Of course, since we have a doctor on board now I have no problems with it."

Luffy tilts his head at the comment. "We have a doctor?"

Usopp ignores the question as he heads to the lift station. "Since we're leaving, I'd better get the lift ready. Hey Luffy, would you give me a hand?"

Luffy nods as he rolls towards him on the large snowball. "They have a lift too? Cool!"

He follows Usopp into the lift station to get to work on getting the lift ready while everyone else continues to wait for the humanoid reindeer to come out.

* * *

Chopper slowly walks through the halls of the snow filled castle until he reaches the outside of the infirmary.

"Oh, looks like my patients have disappeared."

When he hears Dr. Kureha's voice, Chopper stays outside the room and peeks through the crack in the door to see her speaking to Dalton.

Dalton nods as he sits up on the bed. "Yes, they're already gone. They wouldn't listen to you."

The old doctor sighs in frustration as she grabs a bottle of rum. "I see, those kids really are trouble makers."

As the doctor takes a drink, Chopper takes a breath to steel his nerves. _*This is it. I'm going to be a pirate.*_

He nods to himself before he slams the door open. "Doctorine, I want to talk to you!"

Dr. Kureha quirks an eyebrow at her assistant's outburst. "There you are Chopper. Where have you been? I need you to go downstairs and help the others carry the cannons to the roof."

Chopper shakes his head. "Please listen Doctorine; I'm going to be a pirate! I'm going out to sea with Luffy and the others!"

Dr. Kureha scowls at the statement. "What did you say?"

"I'm going out to sea, and I'm going to travel the world with them as their doctor!"

Dr. Kureha narrows her eyes at the declaration. "What kind of nonsense is this?! Did you forget who taught you about medicine or do you not care?!"

Chopper widens his eyes at the question before he raises his hands up defensively. "I'm really grateful to you for taking care of me Doctorine, and I really love this country because I met you and Dr. Hiruluk here."

"Then just stay here. You'll never have a chance to live in this kind of castle anywhere else." She takes a swig of her liquor she before continues. "A pirate's life is difficult. You can easily die tomorrow."

"I'm not afraid of dying!"

The old doctor groans in frustration as she sets the bottle down and glares at Chopper. "Would you shut up already?! I've never heard of a reindeer pirate before!"

Chopper starts glaring back at her while he stands his ground. "It's true that I'm a reindeer, but I'm also a man!"

Dr. Kureha clenches her teeth at his stubbornness before she grabs a knife and throws it. "I told you to shut up! No matter what, I won't allow you to become a pirate! You have to kill me first!"

"Aah!" Chopper widens his eyes at the knife that missed his head by an inch then looks at Dr. Kureha nervously. "Doctorine, please understand..."

Dr. Kureha starts growling as she grabs as many knives as she can carry and starts throwing them at him. "You're not a man! You're just a crybaby! There's no way I'll let you leave here!"

"AAAH!" Chopper starts running for dear life with Dr. Kureha chasing after him with her knives.

Meanwhile in the lobby of the castle, the villagers, who are moving the cannons out of the weapon's room, stop what they're doing when they hear a chase going on.

"Hey did you hear that?"

Another villager shakes his head as he gets back to moving the cannon. "Forget it; we need to keep moving these things."

The others nod as they continue their work.

"Right, if we don't finish moving these cannons soon Dr. Kureha will kill us with her knives."

"STOP!"

Everyone stops at the sound of Dr. Kureha's yelling and turns to her direction only to see Chopper run past them. When they see what he's running from, they scream in terror as they jump out of the way from the dozens of flying knives heading in their direction.

Chopper manages to make it out into the courtyard then finds the large sled he's been using to bring Dr. Kureha down the mountain. He puts on the reins then transforms into walk point in order to run away with the sled. _*I'm sorry Doctorine, but I want to see the world!*_

Dr. Kureha makes it outside as she furiously yells after him while she throws more knives at him. "WHAT CAN YOU DO AS A PIRATE?! ARE YOU JUST GOING TO LIVE IN A STUPID DREAM LIKE THAT QUACK HIRULUK DID WITH HIS CHERRY BLOSSOMS?!"

Chopper widens his eyes at the question before he glares back at Dr. Kureha. "HE'S NOT A QUACK! DOCTOR'S RESEARCH HAS ALREADY BEEN COMPLETED!"

He quickly ran outside where Luffy and Usopp have just finished getting the lift ready as they leave the station. Once they were out of the station they joined the others in looking at the fleeing reindeer in confusion.

Chopper motions his head for the sled behind him as he runs towards them. "EVERYONE, GET ON THE SLED! WE'RE GOING DOWN THE MOUNTAIN!"

Everyone looks at the crazy chase between the reindeer and the knife throwing elder in shock before they run to the sled and quickly hop on.

Zoro quickly tilts his upper body back to dodge one of her knives. "What the hell is with this hag?!"

He almost falls off the sled, but Usopp grabs him and pulls him on the sled before he quickly ducks to dodge a knife. "The hell if I know!"

"STOP!" Dr. Kureha throws the last of her knives at the sled which everyone ducks to avoid when Chopper jumps onto the lift line and runs on it to head down the mountain.

Luffy looks around at the island view where village lights shine below him with stars in his eyes. "Whoa, this is awesome!"

Sanji goes into his pocket and grabs a cigarette before he starts smoking. "Enjoy it while you can because as soon as we reach the ship we're leaving."

Rose looks around to take in as much of the beautiful view as possible. _*I have to get in control of my flying as soon as possible to get a view like this.*_

She looks back at the castle and softly grins at the pirate flag that's flying at the top of the castle. _*I look forward to seeing your cherry blossoms Dr. Hiruluk.*_

Chopper looks back at the mountain top to see Dr. Kureha scowling down at him through the snowfall before he focuses on getting his new crew down the mountain. Once Chopper makes it down to the large tree, where the line is tied, he jumps onto the ground while he continues to drag the sled with him.

Luffy grins in excitement as the sled travels through the forest. "That was awesome! Let's go again!"

Nami whacks him on the head. "This isn't a ride!"

Vivi nods in agreement as she looks ahead. "Nami's right, we need to get going. Are you alright Chopper? We can walk from here."

Chopper shakes his head as he keeps pulling the sled through the woods. "I'm fine with this, which way to the ship?"

Zoro looks around then looks left. "We should go left."

Nami shakes her head. "We need to go right!"

"Got it!" Chopper follows Nami's advice and runs to the right while Dr. Kureha stares at the fleeing sled from the top of the mountain.

"Is it really ok to say goodbye like this Dr. Kureha?"

The doctor doesn't turn her attention to Dalton's voice as he walks up to the old woman, but instead she starts smiling. "Heh, he's just a pet that I was asked to take care of."

She keeps a strong smile on her face as tears start falling off her cheeks and land into the snow beneath her. "Sad goodbyes are pointless…"

Dalton softly smiles at the weeping old woman until she stops crying, grabs his ear and starts dragging him back to the castle. "Come with me!"

"Ouch!" He struggles to keep his footing as she brings him into the castle.

Once they're inside, she releases his ear and smirks to see that almost all the cannons are out of the weapon room. "Since he's leaving the island, we need to give him a goodbye that he'll never forget! Make sure that the cannons are ready on the roof."

Dalton nervously nods as he runs to the roof to make sure that there are no problems with the cannons. Dr. Kureha heads into the infirmary and takes out a brown sack from one of her drawers with a smirk on her face. _*Time to see if your research paid off Hiruluk.*_

She heads up to the roof where ten cannons are lined up at the edge of the roof and gives the bag to Dalton. "Be sure to use this in all the cannons."

Dalton nods as he rushes to place the red powder that was in the bag in each cannon. Once the cannons are ready Dr. Kureha keeps her smirk up while crossing her arms over her chest. "Everyone, aim the cannons for the sky and fire!"

The villagers manning each cannon salute her before they follow her orders. "Yes ma'am!"

They fire the red powder into the clouds causing Dalton to look at her in confusion. "What exactly are you planning here?"

She looks out into the forest once more before looking up at where the cannons were shot. "You'll see in a moment." _*This had better work you quack.*_

* * *

Chopper continues running through the woods with the sled and tries his best not to look back at the mountain that he abandoned when thoughts of his adoptive father's research come into mind. _*Doctor's research really did get completed right?*_

As he begins to remember how happy Dr. Hiruluk was when he told him that his research was completed he starts clenching his eyes shut. He doesn't want to believe that his adoptive father lied, but since he never saw them it's hard to believe it. _*He just didn't want to see me sad in knowing that his research wasn't finished yet. I wish you were here to tell me the truth Doctor…*_

He pauses when he suddenly hears the sound of cannon fire behind him then stops the sled. He turns around along with the rest of the group and they freeze at the sight in front of them.

No one could believe their eyes when they see that the summit of the drum shaped mountain that they just fled became covered with a large pink cloud to make the mountain resemble a tree. What's the most amazing about this sight is that pink snow started falling from the cloud just as cherry blossoms would from their tree.

Chopper turns back into brain point and slowly walks to the front of the sled to get a closer look at the sight when the pink snow starts gently falling towards them.

Luffy widely smiles at the pink snow that's flowing with the wind around them. "Wow, this is so cool!"

Usopp quickly nods as he grins at the cherry blossom like snow. "This is amazing!"

Rose softly grins at the beautiful sight while unconsciously caressing her crystal necklace. _*This is so amazing, so this was Dr. Hiruluk's research. And this sight is just one of the incredible things that this world has to offer.*_

When one of the pink snowflakes landed on Chopper's blue nose tears began welling up in his eyes. _*So these are the cherry blossoms… Doctor… Doctorine…*_ "WAAAH!"

The other turn in shock to see the new pirate openly crying for joy at the sight. They softly smile at him before they look away to allow him to continue crying from seeing the cherry blossoms.

Dr. Kureha manages to hear her assistant's crying then tears up herself as she grins down at the forest. "Take care, my stupid son."

Dalton softly grins at her as he watches the pink snow gently falling around him. "This truly is an amazing sight."

Dr. Kureha nods as she looks out at the ocean. "They should be sailing away any moment now."

Dalton nods as he takes a seat and enjoys the view. "I honestly never thought that a reindeer would carry out that great doctor's will."

Dr. Kureha chuckles as she sits down, grabs a flask from her jacket and takes a swig. "If Hiruluk can make cherry blossoms appear on a winter island then I can't see why a reindeer can't become a pirate."

She couldn't help but laugh at the argument she had with Chopper. "He even told me that he was a man. Hahaha."

Dalton begins to chuckle before two villagers that stayed inside to get warm ran over to Dalton. "Mr. Dalton!"

He looks back in confusion when they run up to him with a wanted poster in one of their hands.

"I completely forgot that we have something to tell you."

"What is it?"

"Take a look!" He gives the wanted poster to him causing Dalton and Dr. Kureha to widen their eyes to see Luffy's smiling face on the paper.

Dalton couldn't take his eyes off the wanted poster as he reads that Luffy's capture is worth 30 million beli. "His bounty's worth 30 million?"

Dr. Kureha couldn't help but laugh at the bounty as she takes the poster. "Looks like Chopper left with some dangerous people. Hahaha!"

Dalton turns back to the villagers. "Where did you guys get this?"

"Well, we forgot to tell you. Last week there was a man in Ropel. Nobody knew where he was from, but he said that he's looking for the Blackbeard pirates."

The other villager nods. "When we told him that they weren't here he asked if we knew a pirate with a straw hat."

Dalton widens his eyes at this while continuing to listen to the villager's explanation. "When we told him that we never saw him before, he gave us the poster and told us to give him a message if we saw him."

Dalton quirks an eyebrow at the statement. "A message?"

The villager nods as he continues. "He said to tell him that Ace will be waiting for him in Alabasta for ten days."

Dalton nods in understanding. "I see, I don't think we should worry about that."

The villagers look at him in confusion. "Why's that?"

"Because their next destination is Alabasta."

One of the villagers looks at Dr. Kureha who has been quiet the whole time in confusion. "You've been pretty quiet Doctor Kureha."

The doctor nods as she gives them the poster. "Do you know who Gol D. Roger is?"

The other villager looks at her in confusion. "D? Wait, you mean Gold Roger? There's not a single person in the world who doesn't know his name."

Dr. Kureha chuckles at the name. "So they're calling him Gold Roger now huh?"

The others look at her in confusion as she gets up and walks inside. "Good to know that his will is still alive. Can't wait to see what happens next."

Everyone outside could only stare at the leaving doctor before they follow her inside to get some rest in order to get ready to recreate their new country.

* * *

Once the crew made it back to the ship, Vivi widened her eyes in shock when she saw a large frozen duck floating in the water. "CARUE!"

Carue weakly quacks when Luffy stretches his arm to grab Carue's wing, that's above the surface, then pulls him out of the water.

Vivi quickly brings Carue onto the deck while Rose and Nami run inside and come back with a few blankets to warm up the duck.

"Thank you!" Vivi quickly wraps the blankets around him while the others climbed aboard. "Why were you in the water Carue?!"

Carue weakly quacks in response with Zoro chuckling at him. "He probably fell into the water."

Vivi glares at him as she keeps warming up the duck. "Shut up!"

When Carue starts warming up he begins quacking more.

Chopper listens to him closely before he translates for the others. "He says that 'he saw Zoro jump into the water and disappear. He thought he was drowning so he jumped after him.'"

Nami widens her eyes at the explanation before she whacks the swordsman on the head. "So this was your fault!"

Vivi blinks at the translation Chopper gave her. "You can understand what Carue says?"

Chopper nods. "Since I was originally an animal, I can understand animal language."

Nami grins in excitement. "That's wonderful! This ability along with your medical knowledge will be really helpful."

Chopper couldn't help the smile growing on his face as he starts dancing. "Quit it asshole! You should know that words like that won't make me happy!"

Rose couldn't help but grin at the dance that she can never get tired of.

Usopp and Luffy could only sweat drop at the dance. "If you're not happy then you shouldn't be dancing…"

Sanji looks at Nami in confusion. "Hey Nami, what did you mean when you said he had medical knowledge?"

"He's a doctor."

All of the boys look at the reindeer in utter shock. "WHAT?!"

Nami sweat drops at the reaction. "Why did you think I wanted him to join us?"

Luffy stares at her blankly as he answers. "Because he can grow big and small."

Sanji puffs a smoke from his cigarette before answering. "Emergency food supply."

Chopper flinches at that before he realizes that he forgot something. "Wait, I forgot my bag! It has all of my medical supplies in it!"

Rose tilts her head in confusion before she points to the sled. "You mean the bag that's in the sled?"

Chopper widens his eyes when he sees Rose use her wind to lift a blue medical backpack, with a white 'X' mark decorating it, off the back of the sled and land it on the deck in front of Chopper.

Chopper quickly grabs the bag and looks inside to see that everything he needs is inside. "How did it get in the sled?"

Nami grins down at the bag. "Dr. Kureha must have done it."

Chopper looks down at the bag softly as he remembers looking back at Dr. Kureha when he was running down the mountain and spots a glimpse of her sadly watching him leave before she scowled at him. _*Doctorine…*_

Luffy begins to grin before he raises his fists into the air. "ALRIGHT, LET'S SET SAIL!"

The rest of the crew nods as they release the sails and begin sailing off the island. Once the ship began to move, Zoro went into the kitchen and came out few bottles of liquor in his hands. "If we're going to watch the cherry blossoms while we're leaving then we should have a cherry blossom party."

"Don't go taking the booze when you want to moss head!" Zoro manages to safely put the booze down before getting into a leg and sword clash with Sanji.

Luffy widens his eyes at the idea before he eagerly nods. "Yea, come on guys! Let's party!"

Usopp eagerly nods before he turns to his new crewmate. "Hey Chopper, come join us!"

Chopper widens his eyes at the invitation before he nods and joins Luffy and Usopp in dancing with chopsticks up their noses. "Ok!"

As Drum island was growing smaller in view, the party continued to erupt on the ship. Zoro doesn't hesitate to drink as much booze while Nami and Vivi are eating some of the treats that Sanji prepared together.

Luffy, Usopp, Chopper and Carue snuck a few drinks before they danced around with chopsticks up their noses while they sang as out of tune as they possibly can.

Rose could only smile at the party as she sits on the railing, a few feet away from everyone, and watches them having fun while she eats one of Sanji's treats. As she watches the crew enjoying themselves, she can't help but think back on the fantastic adventure that she experienced with them and admire how they can overcome everything that she's read about them and then some. _*This crew truly is amazing. Now that Drum Island's done the next stop's Alabasta. And then when that adventure ends, who knows what I'll do after I stay behind…*_

She swallowed the last of her food when she felt her heart grow a little heavy from the thought of leaving the crew. She shakes her head to get rid of the feeling. _*I already knew that I had to leave. No point in getting sad over it. I have other things to worry about. Like what can I do to help the others get through the-*_

She snaps out of her trance when she suddenly starts floating off the railing. She softly sighs as she stops herself from rising up any further, but doesn't try to land. _*Right, I have this problem with my power too… I should go work on getting this under control.*_

She flies past the party to get to the back of the ship when she feels a rubber arm stretch around her waist and pull her towards the owner.

Luffy reels the blushing girl next to him with a toothy grin. "What are you doing flying away? The party's right here."

She turns away from Luffy to hide her blush from the embrace as she lands next to him and pulls herself out of his arms. "I think it's better if I get the hang of my flying ton-"

She cuts herself off when Nami stumbles in and hands her a mug of beer. "Quit worrying about your flying and have some fun! It's a party!" She starts hiccuping as she goes off to grab herself another mug.

Luffy grabs a mug for himself as he grins at the wind girl. "Nami's right, don't worry so much and join the fun."

Rose widens her eyes at his declaration before she nods and looks down at the cup while Luffy yells out to the crew. "HERE'S TO CHOPPER JOINING THE CREW!"

"YEA!" Everyone clashes their mugs together and parties the night away as they leave the winter island behind.

* * *

Hours after the party had commenced, Rose and Vivi, who were the only sober ones left, have begun dragging their drunken friends to their beds. After a lot of struggling and listening to their friends' drunken babbling, they've managed to work together to get almost everyone to their rooms.

Vivi manages to bring Carue onto the futon then sighs from exhaustion before she realizes something important and turns to Rose, who's tucking Chopper in on a spare hammock. "Wait a minute, why didn't you use your wind to carry everyone in at once?!"

Rose widens her eyes at the realization that she could have spared them an hour of scraping their drunk friends off the deck before she blushes in embarrassment, and rubs the back of her head sheepishly. "Umm, can we go with that all the excitement from the island along with the party made me forget that I could do that?"

Vivi widens her eyes at the excuse before she groans in defeat. "I suppose so, I forgot too… Who's left?"

Rose looks around the guys' room to see that everyone is sleeping soundly except for one person. "Since we brought Nami to our room, it looks like Luffy's the only one left. Since he's passed out, it shouldn't be too hard."

"Ok, then let's-"

Vivi accidentally starts yawning while Rose turns to her. "Why don't you go to bed Vivi? Like you said, I can use my wind to carry him, so bringing him in should be easy."

Vivi nods as she heads out of the room. "Ok, if you say so. Thank you."

"Don't mention it." Rose heads out of the room and onto the deck where Luffy is snoring away with his face flushed from all the alcohol he drank.

She walks over to Luffy, while being careful to not step on his limbs, and looks down at his passed out body blankly. _*Man, how much booze did he drink?*_

She starts using her wind to lift Luffy up when the drunk captain's dark eyes began to slowly open up. Once he saw Rose's face, he smiled from ear to ear. "ROSE~!"

The freckled girl didn't have any time to react when Luffy suddenly stretches his arms around her and pulls her into a hug. She stumbles back and breaks her concentration before she forces herself to stumble forward to regain her balance with Luffy clinging to her.

Once she managed to keep both her feet on the deck, she blushed at the closeness as she tried to get out of the embrace. "What the hell Luffy?"

Luffy keeps his arms around her shoulders while he laughs at her flustered face. "Shishishi, your face got red again. Hey, can you change your face into different colors?"

She blinks at the question before she chuckles and gives up on getting the clinging captain off her. "I think I might be able to turn green."

Luffy widens his eyes at the answer before he stares at her with excitement in his eyes. "Really?! I wanna see!"

"Sorry, only happens when i'm super nauseous."

He starts pouting at the rejection. "Boo~! Hey, can meat poop?"

She chuckles at the random question before she turns to the door while keeping her arm around Luffy's waist to keep him standing, and starts walking to the door with him. "I don't think so. We should get you inside."

Luffy blinks in surprise before he drags his feet to slow them down. "Aww, why? I don't wanna go to bed."

She struggles to keep them balance as she sighs. "But if don't go inside then how are we gonna get to Alabasta?"

Luffy widens his eyes in utter shock while he stops them from walking. "Alabasta's in the ship?! Merry knows that we need to go to Alabasta! Why's she hiding the island from us?!"

 _*Oh my god, Luffy's even crazier when he's drunk!*_ She starts trembling from holding back from laughing while she points to the door. "I-I think she wanted to surprise you…"

Luffy blinks in surprise before he grins, stumbles along with her, and raises a fist in the air. "Really?! Then what are we waiting for?! Off to Alabasta!"

"Off to Alabasta!" She walks to the door while half dragging a fumbling rubber man with her.

Once inside, Luffy looks around in the hallways to try to find the mystery island. "Where's Alabasta?!"

"I think Merry hid it in the guys' room."

Luffy starts nodding as if what she said made perfect sense. "Oh, hey if lapins are rabbits then why are they so big? Are they mystery rabbits? Can they poop?"

Rose couldn't take it anymore and starts laughing which starts irritating the tipsy captain. "This is a question of life and death! Be serious!"

She slowly nods as she tries to hold in her laughter. "Hahaha, O-ok, umm, I think they're definitely mystery rabbits and I'm sure they can poop too."

Luffy blinks in surprise before he shows off a toothy grin. "Awesome~! We should ask them to join the crew!"

She shakes her head while she recovers from her laughing fit when they reach the door to the guys' room. "I don't think you'd want them in your crew, we should focus on getting to Alabasta. It should be past this door."

She manages to bring him into the guys' room when Luffy looks around the room. "This is Alabasta?"

She nods as she looks around as if she's looking for the crew's enemy. "You can say that. It looks like Crocodile ran away after he heard that you were coming."

Luffy nods in approval as he lets her bring him inside. "Good, if he was here I'd kick his ass!"

She chuckles as she takes his hat off to place it on the night stand next to his hammock before she uses her wind to lay him down onto his hammock while pulling his arms off her. When he's finally lying down on the hammock, she pulls a blanket over his body. "I have no doubt about it. Now that Alabasta's safe, I have to go. Good night."

She turns around to leave when Luffy suddenly grabs onto her hand.

Rose widens her eyes at the hand that's stopping her from leaving then looks to see Luffy sitting up with his bangs covering his eyes. "What's the matter Lu-?!"

"I want you to join my crew!"

TO BE CONTINUED


	10. Chapter 10

Rose's look of shock was only met with silence as she processed the demand to join Luffy's crew in her head. _*What the ever flying crap did he just say?! He actually asked me to join him?!*_

She shakes her head to snap herself out of it before she weakly chuckles and takes her hand back. "Sorry Luffy, but that's the worst joke I ever heard. I can't join you."

Luffy looks up at her in shock and reveals the redness in his cheeks. "This isn't a joke, and I refuse your refusal~!"

She widens her eyes at the slightly slurred response ans looks closer at Luffy's face to see that he's still in a slight daze from the alcohol.

 _*Shit, he's still drunk…*_ She groans in frustration before she scowls at him. "In that case, I refuse your refusal to my refusal."

He widens his eyes at the answer in pure shock. "You can't do that!"

"I just did." She turned around to walk away when a rubber arm suddenly stretched around her waist and pulled her onto the hammock. They almost fell to the floor, but Rose managed to stop them from falling by holding onto the hammock.

Luffy doesn't care that they're swinging as he keeps his arms around her. "Wait, don't leave! Join my-"

She covers his mouth, with an embarrassing blush decorating her face, and looks around to see that the others guys are still asleep. She sighs in relief that they didn't wake anyone before she takes her hand off his mouth and whispers to him. "Keep it down will ya?"

"I'll do it if you-"

"Please just stop, I can't join you."

"Why not~?"

She starts massaging her temples to try to soothe her growing headache before she pulls out of his embrace. "I just can't..."

She runs her hands down her face as she gets up from the hammock, and takes a few steps away from him.

Luffy tilts his head in confusion when he sees her looks him in the eye with a sad look on her face. "Look, I appreciate everything you guys did for me, and you have no idea how flattered I am that you offered, but I can't stay. I need to find my place in the world and Alabasta's the perfect spot to get my start as a real astronomer…"

She starts giving him a reassuring smile while she waves her hand dismissively. "Besides, you guys are pretty badass on your own. I'm sure you guys will quickly move on. There's a lot more awesome stuff out there than a wind girl any-"

"What the hell are you talking about?!"

She hitches her breath when Luffy stumbles out of bed with a furious look on his face. "What do you mean I'll move on?! Don't think that I just forget my friends like they're nothing!"

She quickly looks around to see the guys stirring, but their eyes are still shut, so she raises her hands defensively. "I'm sorry; I didn't mean it like that. What I mean is you'll find people that'll fit with your crew better."

He doesn't take the excuse as he keeps pressing for her to join. "That doesn't make sense at all! We worked together great back at the island, your power's cool, and you're really fun too! If you don't fit with the crew then none of us do either!"

She looks at the honest boy in utter shock before her lips curl up into a soft smile. "Thank you Luffy, I'd love to join your crew, but-"

"Awesome, you're in the crew then! Good night!" He starts smiling at the declaration before he lays down on the hammock with his back to the slack jawed girl.

Rose blinks in surprise as she plays back the conversation in her head before she angrily walks up to the hammock and whispers loudly. "Hey, let me finish dammit! I'd love to join, but I can't. If I stay I don't know what would happen to everyone. I don't want to cause you or the others problems so it's better if I-"

She stops herself to the sound of Luffy's snoring and looks over his shoulder to see that he fell asleep.

She growls in frustration then takes a deep breath before she forces herself to leave the room to prevent herself from punching him. _*He just falls asleep after declaring that I'm in his crew like it's no big thing?! Dammit, no wonder some of the others got so pissed off when he was recruiting them! Honestly, ME one of the Straw Hat Pirates?! Now I know that I can't be surprised by this world anymore! He'd better not remember any of this!*_

She takes another deep breath to calm herself down again then quietly sighs while running her hands through her hair. Once she starts calming down she walks down the hall while she drifts off into her thoughts. _*It's not like I don't want to join them… Hell, if any other One Piece fan was in this situation they'd have jumped at this opportunity. Still, I don't know what would happen if I joined. I wasn't even supposed to meet them in the first place. Besides, who ever heard of a pirate astronomer any-?*_

"There you are Rose, I was just about to check on you."

Rose snaps out of her thoughts when she sees Vivi outside of the girls' room. "Was everything ok? You were taking a while."

She quickly nods with a reassuring smile. "I'm ok, sorry for worrying you. Luffy woke up when I was bringing him in and started talking nonsense, but I managed to bring him inside."

"I see, we should get some sleep ourselves. We have a long day of travelling tomorrow."

Rose tiredly nods as she follows her into the room. "I couldn't agree more…"

She follows Vivi into the bedroom while silently worrying about what's going to happen tomorrow.

* * *

 _In the early evening in New York City, a seven year old Rose was practicing playing an acoustic guitar, that's too big for her, in her parents' study. "How did that song go again?"_

 _She starts sloppily stringing the beginning of the song 'Hey There Delilah' by the Plain White T's, but gets frustrated when the chords weren't sounding right. "Dammit!"_

 _"Hey, ease up on the language!"_

 _Rose widens her eyes when she turns around to see her dad walking into the room with a scowl on his face. "Where did you learn how to curse like that?!"_

 _She looks down in shame while she rubs the back of her head. "Umm, I think I heard it when I was learning moves from Yusuke Urameshi or Ranma Saotome..."_

 _Joe sweat drops at the answer before he bursts out laughing. "Hahaha, you've been copying your moves from martial arts animes like Ranma 1/2 this whole time?!"_

 _She puffs her cheeks in a pout before she puts the guitar down. "Quit laughing! How else am I supposed to learn?! I know I can't do the cool magic moves, but I can at least learn some of the fighting moves!"_

 _He finishes laughing before he pats her on the head. "Sorry, sorry, you shouldn't just be copying things from other worlds though."_

 _"Why not? If we go into one of these worlds, I can blend in easier from what I learn."_

 _He quirks an eyebrow at the explanation before he shakes his head. "Blending in isn't always a good thing. Besides, it's better to learn from someone in person. I can teach you how to fight if you want?"_

 _She quirks an eyebrow at the suggestion before she pushes his hand away. "What do you know about fighting?"_

 _"A lot actually. When you're in a fight, there's only one spot that you need to always aim for."_

 _Rose looks up at her dad with pure curiosity in her eyes. "Are you talking about the crotch?"_

 _The brown haired man was completely slack jawed at what his child just said. "Don't go saying crotch like it's a decent word! That's not the spot I talking about! When you're fighting someone, you need to aim for the nose!"_

 _She quirks an eyebrow at the statement. "Why at the nose?"_

 _He starts smirking with pride before he points to his freckled nose. "Because people are like sharks, when you hit the nose they go running."_

 _Rose could only blink at the statement before she starts bursting out laughing. "Hahaha, what kind of a reason is that?!"_

 _Joe looks at his daughter in utter shock before he gives her his own pout. "Hey, I'm serious! The nose is a good weak point! If you hit it just right, you can give them a good nosebleed!"_

 _She keeps laughing causing her father to sigh in defeat before he looks at the guitar that she was trying to play. "You were trying to play my guitar?"_

 _She hitches her breath before she shifts her eyes everywhere. "N-no way, I wasn't trying to play it…"_

 _He sweat drops at the horrible lie that she gave him. "You're a terrible liar…" He looks at the guitar and thinks on how recently she's been trying to learn various skills from cooking to even healing. "You've been trying to learn a bunch of new skills lately. Any reason for it?"_

 _She sighs before she scratches the back of her head. "I want to learn real skills. Most of the stuff I learn at school's going to be useless when we get out of this world. By the way, can you teach me your glare of death?"_

 _He blinks behind his glasses then chuckles as he adjusts them. "Sorry, but I'd rather not ruin your adorable face by teaching you my glares."_

 _"Oh come on, please?! I can use it to scare my enemies away!"_

 _He couldn't help but chuckle again before he pets her head. "I'll make you a deal then. I'll teach you everything you want to know, but if we wind up in an anime world then you need to do your own thing instead of copying the main characters. Can you do that?"_

 _She eagerly nods as she picks up the large guitar. "Deal, then let's get-"_

 _"Hold it!" He takes the guitar from her and holds it up out of her reach while she tries to jump to grab it. "As punishment for cursing, I'm not teaching you a single thing today. That includes our normal constellation sessions."_

 _She stops jumping and slowly nods with a sad look on her face as she watches her dad put the guitar to the side. "Instead, we're going out to run some errands before mom gets back from her tutoring sessions. Besides, you need a guitar meant for your size."_

 _She widens her purple eyes at the last sentence before she eagerly nods with a large smile. "Yea, let's go!"_

 _Joe starts softly smiling at his little girl before he leads her out of the apartment and takes her out into the city for the rest of the evening._

* * *

The next morning, Rose is sleeping soundly with a soft smile from the memory of her father before she slowly wakes up to see that she's the only one in the room. _*How long was I asleep?! Never mind that, I gotta get up and see if Luffy remembers!*_

She rushes out of the room and runs down the hall while she chuckles at the dream she had. _*Well dad, I'm definitely keeping at least a part of our deal. I can't copy this crew no matter how hard I try. If you and mom can see what's going on then I bet you'd be laughing your asses off.*_

She shakes her head when she heads outside to see Nami and Vivi hanging out at the front of the ship and Zoro training on the deck. Once she sees that the captain isn't there, she goes into the kitchen to see Luffy, Usopp, Chopper, and Carue sitting at the table and chugging a large glass of water while Sanji is cooking breakfast.

"Having a water drinking contest?"

The guys widen their eyes at Rose's voice and turn to her after they finish their water.

Sanji shows hearts in his eyes as he twirls to her. "Good morning Rose-chan, did you sleep well?"

She nods while Usopp groans and rubs his aching head. "Shut up Sanji, Chopper's medicine didn't work yet…"

Sanji twitches a curly eyebrow in irritation before he turns to the guys. "You shut up, it's your fault for getting a hangover!"

He gets back to cooking while Rose takes a seat at the table in between Chopper and Luffy then starts speaking softly. "You all have hangovers?"

Chopper shakes his head. "Just Usopp, Luffy, and Carue. I gave them some medicine to help them recover faster."

She nods then sneaks a glance at Luffy who's focusing on the food Sanji's cooking. _*How the hell am I going to see if he remembers or not?*_

Usopp lays his head down on the table to try to take the pressure off his head. "I'll never drink again..."

Rose widens her eyes at the statement when a memory from last night pops up in her head, so she starts chuckling. "That's too bad, because you were pretty funny last night Usopp. "

Usopp slowly turns to her in confusion while he keeps his head on the table. "I was? I don't remember."

"Yea, you started singing that you were 'Captain Usopp'. Then later on, you tried copying Carue by pretending to be a bird and I helped with that by making you fly around a bit."

Usopp widens his eyes in utter shock at the story before he shoots his head up. "That did not happen!"

Sanji shakes his head with a small smirk as he's getting the fruit ready. "No, I remember. You tried flying to Nami's tree, but Rose wouldn't let you. You somehow fell out of her wind and almost landed on your face before she caught you."

Usopp drops his jaw at the story before he buries his face in his hands. "That's settled then, no more alcohol..."

Everyone else softly laughs at Usopp's reaction when Luffy turns to her with an excited grin. "What did I do?! Did I say anything funny?!"

Rose widens her eyes at the questions while he, and the rest of the guys still suffering from a hangover, groan at the captain's loud voice.

 _*HE REALLY FORGOT!*_ Rose quietly sighs in relief of the confirmation before chuckling. "You were pretty funny too. When I was bringing you inside I somehow got you to believe that Merry hid Alabasta in the ship. You also asked me if meat can poop."

Everyone was laughing at the story except for Chopper who was looking at Luffy in confusion. "You really don't remember anything from when Rose brought you in the guys' room Luffy?"

Rose widens her eyes at the doctor's question while Luffy shakes his head. "Nope, it's all blank after I fell asleep on the deck. Why?"

"You woke me up last night when you were-"

Rose quickly covers Chopper's mouth causing the other guys to look at her in confusion. She looks at them nervously before she awkwardly chuckles. "Hehe, sorry we woke you doc. Luffy wouldn't stop clinging to me when I was getting him in his hammock, and there was a bit of an argument."

Sanji widens his eyes at the story as he finishes cooking before he glares at Luffy. "You clung to her in bed you shitty captain?!"

Luffy gulps before he gets up and runs away from the angry chef. Once they're out of the room, Rose takes her hand off Chopper's mouth. "Can we talk for a second alone doc?"

Chopper nods as he follows her out of the kitchen and leaves Usopp and Carue alone in the room.

Usopp quirks an eyebrow at the departure. "What's with her?"

Carue shrugs as he sneaks some of the food off the counter while waiting for everyone else to come in.

* * *

Rose leads Chopper into the girls' room before she closes the door behind them. "When exactly did you wake up last night?"

"When you refused his refusal to your refusal. I was pretending to be asleep while listening to the conversation."

Rose blinks in surprise before she runs her hands through her hair. "Shit, sorry we woke you."

"It's ok, but why don't you want to join?"

She quietly sighs as she scratches the back of her head. "I have my own goal to accomplish and it doesn't link with being in a crew. Like I told Luffy last night, Alabasta is the perfect place to help me get started on accomplishing my dream along with becoming a real astronomer. I'm definitely grateful to everyone, and I'll help you guys out in Alabasta, but when that adventure ends I can't stay anymore."

Chopper looks up at her with sadness in his eyes. "Is there any way you can stay?"

Rose slowly shakes her head before she kneels down to his level and pats his head. "Sorry, but I can't. Can you do me a favor though?"

"What is it?"

"Please don't tell Luffy and the others what you heard. I don't want to get into another fight with Luffy."

Chopper slowly nods. "Ok, but what if he asks you again?"

She widens her eyes at the question before sighing in exasperation. "I have no idea…"

 _*It was tiring enough refusing a drunk Luffy. If he asks me when he's sober then I'm going to have a battle of will with one of the most stubborn men in the universes…*_ Rose snaps out of her thoughts when Nami opens the door.

"There you guys are. Come up and have breakfast."

Rose nods before waving at her. "Ok, we'll catch up in a bit."

Nami nods before she walks away while Rose turns to Chopper. "I'll figure something out when the time comes. Chances are, he probably just asked because he was drunk. Thank you for doing this for me. Also, thank you for this."

She starts smiling before she points to her right cheek, that's no longer marked from her foster family's abuse, along with her unmarked arms and neck. "This is the first time since I don't remember when that my body doesn't have any scratches or bruises on them. You really are an amazing doctor."

Chopper starts blushing before he starts dancing with a large smile on his face. "Shut up you asshole! I don't want any compliments from you. I'm not happy at all you bastard!"

Rose giggles at the adorable dance as she gets up before Chopper stops dancing and looks at her softly. "I don't think Luffy just asked because he was drunk. I'm sure he's going to ask you again."

Rose widens her eyes at the comment before she shrugs with a sad smile. "Only time can tell. Let's get going before Luffy eats our breakfast."

Chopper quickly nods as he follows her out of the room while the freckled girl loses her smile and drifts off into her thoughts. _*Luffy probably just asked because he was drunk right? It's crazy that he asked me at all. I honestly didn't think that he'd… If I'm serious about not joining the crew then I have to start distancing myself from him…*_

She slowly nods to herself when the two of them make it to the kitchen where everyone else was waiting for them.

Luffy smiles at the pair with a footprint implanted on his cheek from where Sanji kicked him. "There you guys are. Let's eat."

The two latecomers nod as they take their seats and start eating breakfast with everyone as if everything was normal.

* * *

After helping Sanji with the dishes Rose walks out of the kitchen to see Luffy, Usopp, Carue and Chopper playing tag on the deck.

Rose grins at the game before she starts making her way to the back of the ship, but before she can make it there Luffy runs up to her. "Hey Rose, come play with us."

She shakes her head with a soft smile. "Sorry Luffy, I can't play."

"Huh?! Why not?"

Before she can say anything, Zoro walks up to them. "She promised to help me train."

Rose widens her eyes at the excuse before she nods.

Luffy blinks at the excuse before he sighs in defeat. "Aww, ok. We can play later."

Rose nods as she waves him off, and follows Zoro to the back of the ship where they're out of earshot. Rose grins in excitement for the training as she looks around the deck for ways to help him out. "So you decided to take my offer to help huh? Great, then-"

"What problems were you talking about last night?"

She widens her eyes at the question then turns to see Zoro scowling at her with his arms crossed over his chest.

She quietly sighs as she drops her shoulders. "So you heard that argument too huh?"

"I woke up when Luffy asked if the room was actually Alabasta, but kept my eyes shut. After Luffy said that you're a crewmember, you said you don't know what'll happen to everyone if you stayed. What are you hiding?"

She looks at his hard stare nervously while she tries to come up with something to say. _*Shit, what can I say here?!*_

"Well?"

She quietly gulps before she sighs in exasperation and rubs the back of her head. "I wasn't lying to you guys if that's what you're thinking. I really am a runaway. No one's after me at the moment, but I'm studying to be an astronomer and researching something very important to me and my family. I won't go into too much detail because I'm not certain yet, but if the World Government sees my research as a taboo then I can't guarantee everyone's safety if I stay."

He narrows his eyes at the story that he's not believing in. "How do you not know if this research is a taboo or not?"

She clenches her fists while she keeps her stare to the deck. "My homeland is one of the few places that aren't affiliated with the World Government. Instead, they have their own government. That's as much as I can and will tell you about it."

She starts looking him in the eye with her own hard stare. "Look, I have no intention in hurting the crew. And I don't want to drag you guys into my problems either. After I help you guys out in Alabasta, we part ways no matter what the verdict is on my research."

Zoro stares her down then once he can tell that she's telling the truth he nods in satisfaction. "Fine by me. You'd better be prepared though, when Luffy wants someone in his crew it's almost impossible to change his mind."

Rose chuckles at the comment. "If last night was an example then I have my work cut out for me. For now, I think the best thing to do is make some distance between us."

The swordsman nods in agreement when Rose accidentally starts floating.

Zoro chuckles at her predicament then gets into push-up position. "In that case, let's get started on helping me train. You got used to blasting your wind right?"

She nods at she flies above him. "You want me to blast wind on you while you do push-ups?"

"Yea, as hard as you can. Also, can you put that crate on my back?" He points to the large heavy crate near the stairs causing her to comply by using her wind to lift it and gently set it on his back.

He balances the weight on his back while holding his body up with one arm then gives her a thumbs up. "Ready when you are."

"Ok!" She starts blasting her wind out of her hands and down onto him as hard as she can causing him to land on his stomach before he uses both of his arms to push himself up and starts counting to himself.

Rose widens her eyes to see that he's actually pulling it off then tries to push her wind down on him harder with one thought in mind. _*I know that he has super strength, but this is ridiculous.*_

Zoro feels the strong wind making him struggle to keep his body up, so he smirks at the challenge. _*Now this training is more like it.*_

After the hundredth count, Rose starts sweating from all the energy she's using to make the wind blow down on Zoro. She tries her best not to let up as Zoro keeps doing his push-ups under her, but she keeps growing exhausted.

Zoro notices that the wind is starting to get weaker and looks up to see that she's getting tired, so he shakes the crate off his back. "We can stop now!"

She releases her wind before she lands next to him while she leans next to the railing to keep her balance. "Did that help you at all?"

He nods while he wipes the sweat off his brow with the back of his hand. "That worked better than I thought. What do you say to doing this more before we get to Alabasta?"

Rose nods at the idea. "Works for me, I can use the practice with my wind."

Zoro chuckles at her tired state. "I can see that."

She glares at him while she flips him off before she pushes herself off the railing. "I'll slam you to the deck next time."

He chuckles at the empty threat before he goes to his weights. "Yea whatever, just go rest up. We can try again later."

She nods as she starts heading inside when Luffy waves at her. "Hey Rose, you done? Come play with us!"

Rose shakes her head with a soft smile. "Sorry Luffy, the training took more out of me than I thought. I gotta rest."

Before Luffy can say anything, she heads inside and goes into the empty girls' room. She gets in the covers on her futon when her eyelids begin to grow heavy. She slowly drifts off into sleep with only one thought in mind. _*Sorry Luffy, but no matter what I can't join the crew, so please don't ask again…*_

She falls asleep while silently worrying about what the rest of the trip to Alabasta will hold for her if Luffy ever remembers her recruitment.

TO BE CONTINUED


	11. Chapter 11

Days have passed since the decision was made for Rose to start distancing herself from the captain of the Straw Hats, and she quickly found that the challenge was easier said than done. Aside from when she trains on her powers with Zoro, she has to come up with an excuse almost every time Luffy sees her in order to turn down his invitation to join in his games.

As time went on, Luffy realized that something was wrong and grew even more persistent in trying to get her to hang out with him. While he would sometimes succeed in getting her to play in his games with the others, she would always quickly yet politely excuse herself before he could find out why she's been acting strangely. That doesn't stop the rubber man from trying to get her to stop distancing herself and trying to find out what's going on every chance he gets.

Today was no different as Luffy searches all over the front deck for the wind girl.

Usopp sees his captain from his fishing spot on the railing and waves over to him with one arm while he keeps his fishing pole steady with the other. "Hey Luffy, come help me resupply. If we don't get any food soon Sanji might cook us."

Luffy goes to join him before he stops himself and heads to the back of the ship. "In a bit."

He nods while the captain heads to the back of the ship where Zoro is lifting weights, but with Rose nowhere in sight. "Hey Zoro, you seen Rose anywhere?"

He shakes his head as he keeps lifting his weights. "Nope, she's not here. Maybe she's inside."

Luffy groans in frustration as he drops his shoulders. "I already checked… I don't get why she's being so weird."

Zoro sighs as he puts the weight down. "All girls are weird, but she takes it to another level so it could be anything. Do you remember anything you did that might have pissed her off?"

He thinks hard about the things he could have done to make her avoid him before he shakes his head. "I don't remember… She's been like this since four days ago. The only thing that happened around that time was-"

He widens his eyes as he figures out the reason why she's avoiding him. "Wait, I know why she's mad! She's mad that I didn't invite her to raid all the food in the kitchen with me and the guys!"

Both guys widen their eyes to the sound of suppressed laughter that's ringing in the air. Luffy looks around to only find the two of them present along with a few crates and barrels. "Did you hear that?"

Zoro shakes his head. "Must've been the wind. Anyway, I really doubt that she's mad about that. Hey, why do you keep asking her to hang out?"

Luffy tilts his head in confusion as if he just asked him something ridiculous. "What do you mean? She's my friend."

"Yea, but you don't act like this around Vivi."

"Vivi's not being weird. Besides, it feels like she's only like this around me…"

Zoro quietly sighs at the comment. "She probably needs some space. Try-"

He cuts himself off to the sound of Luffy's stomach growling and angrily scowls at his captain. "Instead of trying to find Rose, how about fishing us some food to make up all the food you stole?! We're all hungry!"

Luffy quickly nods as he goes to the front deck to fish for some food.

Once he's out of earshot, Zoro sighs in exasperation. "You can come out now."

One of the lids to the barrels starts lifting up with Rose's scowling face poking out from under it. "I take weirdness to another level?"

"You're the one hiding in a barrel and almost giving yourself away by laughing."

"I can't help that Luffy's funny!"

He sweat drops at the comment before he walks away. "Whatever, I'm going to take a nap…"

Rose nods as she waves at him from the barrel. "Thanks again for covering for me."

He lifts a hand up before he walks off to the front deck.

Once Rose's alone, she sighs from exhaustion as she sits in the barrel with guilt eating at her. _*I can't keep this up forever. Once we get to Alabasta I'll let up on the distancing. If he asks me to join again on the island then at least I won't be stuck on the ship when I refuse. I just need to wait for the sign showing that the arc is starting...*_

"Hey Luffy, quit trying to eat the bait!"

She widens her eyes to the sound of Usopp's voice then climbs out of the barrel and looks over the railing to see Luffy and Usopp fishing together.

Luffy groans as he swallows the bait that he was eating. "You ate some too Usopp."

"Just a bit that was stuck to the bottom."

Vivi looks over at the boys curiously. "Did you guys catch anything yet?"

The boys shake their heads when they hear some distant quacking over the railing. Vivi looks over the railing and widen her eyes in horror when she sees Carue tied up at the end of their lines. "AAAH! CARUE!"

Luffy ignores her distress as he looks down at his bait. "Think we can catch a shark?"

Usopp looks down at the duck curiously. "Not sure, maybe we can catch a sea king."

Vivi furiously growls as she grabs Usopp and Luffy's heads. "STOP FISHING WITH MY DUCK!"

She bashes their heads together and lets them collapse on the deck. She looks out at the ocean then widens her eyes to see steam rising from the ocean about ten feet away from them. "What the-?!"

Vivi runs into the kitchen to get Nami while the boys look at the steam curiously.

"What's going on?" Usopp asks.

Luffy shrugs as he keeps Carue dangling at the end of his fishing pole.

Rose widens her eyes at the steam when realization hits her. _*This is when Bon Clay comes in! AWESOME!*_

The brunette grins in excitement as she runs down the stairs when Vivi, Chopper and Nami run outside.

When Nami sees the steam she calmly smiles. "It's ok guys, it's just steam."

Chopper looks at her in confusion. "How can steam come out of the ocean?"

"Because that spot over there is a hot spot. It's where magma comes out down at the ocean floor from underwater volcanoes."

Chopper looks at her in shock. "There are volcanoes underwater?"

"Yes, there are more volcanoes underwater than there are on land. In ten thousand years, a new island is going to be here."

Vivi looks at the hot spot with interest. "That's really cool."

Rose nods in agreement. "Do you think it can be a season island Vivi?"

"I'm not sure."

Luffy widens his eyes at Rose's voice and turns his head just when the steam from the hot spot blows over the crew.

Once the steam clears, Luffy and Usopp look at the end of their fishing poles in shock to see a man wearing a swan jacket that says 'the okama way' on its back, swan slippers, and a headband holding onto Carue. "WE CAUGHT AN OKAMA!"

Zoro wakes up from his nap by the mast and looks at the man in confusion along with everyone else while the strange man looks at Carue in complete shock. "HOW DID I GET ON THIS WEIRD DUCK!"

He accidentally lets go of the duck and starts falling towards the ocean before Rose uses her wind to pick him up.

Usopp and Luffy reel Carue in and untie him while Rose gently drops the crew's new guest onto the deck of the ship.

The okama looks down at himself to see that he's alright then looks at everyone in utter confusion. "What just happened?"

"I used my wind to catch you." Rose says causing the okama to turn to her in shock before he smiles at her.

"Thank you very much. I can't swim, so I would've drowned if I fell in the water. I won't forget that I was saved by pirates. Mind if I have a cup of soup?"

Everyone else looks at him in irritation. "No way! We're hungry too!"

Luffy looks at him in confusion. "You can't swim?"

He shakes his head. "Nope, I'm a devil fruit user. My boat sailed past the steam and I somehow wound up on the duck."

Usopp blinks in surprise. "Really? Which devil fruit do you have?"

He looks around for a moment before he widely smiles at his hosts "Well, since my ship's still looking for me I'll give you a show as thanks for saving me! Here's my power!"

He walks up to Luffy and pushes the palm of his right hand on his face hard enough to send him flying backwards. Everyone but Rose puts their guard up at the seemingly hostile.

Zoro grits his teeth as he starts unsheathing his swords. "What the hell are you-"

Bon Clay starts changing his face before he raises his hands defensively with a large smile. "Hold on! Hold on! This is all part of the show!"

Everyone looks at him in utter shock to see that he changed his appearance to look exactly like Luffy. "Stop joking around!"

He starts posing while Luffy gets up with his jaw dropped at the sight. "Whoa, it's me!"

The okama nods as he touches his face with his left hand to change back to normal. "I can change with my right hand and change back with my left hand. That's the power of the clone clone fruit."

Nami could only stare at the okama as she processes what she just saw. "His voice was completely identical…"

Usopp slowly nods while he watches him with a dumbfounded expression. "Even the physique was the same."

Luffy looks at him with stars in his eyes before he applauds him. "That's awesome!"

The okama softly chuckles before he walks around and pats Nami, Usopp, Zoro, Chopper, and Rose's faces with his right hand. "It's not necessary to punch you either."

He smirks as he turns to his small audience and transforms into each of the people he patted continuously while explaining. "If I touch your face with my right hand and I can imitate anyone just like this."

He stops with Rose's body and reaches for her shirt. "Along with your bodies t- EEP!"

The duplicate cuts herself off when she finds herself floating in the air by a gust of wind.

The others look at Rose in shock as she glares at the okama with an embarrassed blush decorating her cheeks. "Reveal anything that I wouldn't and you're going swimming!"

Her duplicate quickly nods as she touches her face with her left hand to cancel the transformation. "Yes ma'am."

Rose nods as she gently sets him down on the deck.

Once both of his feet are on the deck he starts shrugging with a soft smile. "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid that's all I can show you."

Luffy grins in excitement as he stares at him with stars in his eyes. "You're awesome!"

Usopp whistles at the show while Chopper claps for him. "Please do some more!"

The okama can only look at his excited audience with a large smile before he starts pirouetting in joy. "Very well, if you insist!"

Zoro sweat drops as he takes a seat by the railing. "He changed his mind too quickly."

The girls couldn't help but watch the okama in interest as he keeps changing into various people that they've never met. "I also have a perfect memory. I've never forgotten a single face that I've touched."

When he changes to a slightly tan man with long dark hair and a black beard Vivi widens her eyes in shock. _*That face!*_

Zoro scoffs at the show as he closes his eyes. _*This is ridiculous…*_

The okama transforms back to normal and starts twirling around. "Now how do you like my super special talent?! I usually never show this to people so you should feel honored!"

Chopper, Usopp and Luffy quickly applaud him as he keeps twirling like a ballerina then they get up and join the dance.

Rose couldn't help but giggle at the crazy dance going on as she gets ready to join in, but she stops herself and stays back to watch with Vivi.

Vivi blinks in confusion at her behavior but lets it go as she watches the boys dance while singing out of tune.

Nami groans at the dancing idiots and turns away from them. "Please kill me…"

The navigator pauses when she sees a large swan boat approaching them from the ocean then turns to their guest. "Hey, there's a ship heading our way. Is it yours?"

The okama stops dancing to look at the ship then widens his eyes as he jumps onto the railing. "Oh me, oh my! Is it time to leave already? Too bad."

Luffy, Usopp and Chopper start whining in disappointment. "AWWW!"

The okama keeps his back to them as he smiles with tears in his eyes. "Don't be sad my babies! Separation is inevitable, but never forget…"

Tears start streaming down the okama's face as he turns to them with a thumbs up. "Lengths of time means nothing to true friendship!"

The three boys start tearing up with a smile as they wave him off. "Take care!"

The okama couldn't stop the smile on his face when his boat arrives next to the ship and he jumps aboard. "Let's go my lovelies!"

His crew quickly nods as they start setting sail. "Yes sir, Mr. 2!"

Everyone on the Going Merry except for Rose widens their eyes in utter shock at the name as they watch him sail away. "MR. 2?!"

Vivi looks at the fleeing ship in complete shock when realization hits her. "That was Baroque Works' Mr. 2 Bon Clay!"

Luffy turns to her in surprise. "You didn't recognize his face?!"

She buries her head in her hands in frustration. "No, I've never met Mr. 2 and Mr. 1 before, but… I did hear that Mr. 2 was a huge okama, and wore a swan coat that said 'the okama way' on his back..."

Usopp, Luffy and Zoro sweat drop at the description. "You should have noticed…"

Vivi starts trembling at the power she witnessed. "One of those past faces he showed us was my father's. What does he plan to do with his face?"

"If you can change into a ruler then you can do a lot of things." Zoro says while Nami crosses her arms over her chest.

"Luckily he didn't know that we were enemies. Once he finds out though he can turn into any of us…"

Rose nods as she watches the departing ship in thought. "At least we know more about what we're up against."

Zoro pauses when an idea forms in his head and starts smirking. "She's right, now we can make countermeasures against that power. I have an idea on how to do it. Someone get the love cook. I'll be right back."

He walks inside to get something while Chopper runs inside and brings Sanji outside. "What's going on here?"

"We found out that one of our enemies at Baroque Works is an okama that can shape shift into us. Zoro said that he found a way to go against it." Usopp says when Zoro walks outside with a black marker and a roll of bandages.

"Good, you're all here." Zoro marks an 'X' symbol on his left forearm and starts wrapping it with a bandage. "This okama can turn into any of us, so he can easily get close to Vivi. If any of us are acting suspicious then we should ask them to take the bandage off and show us the symbol. If they only show us the bandage and can't show the symbol then we know it's him."

Sanji blinks in surprise at the plan as he lights up his cigarette. "Wow, using two symbols to confirm our identities. That's pretty intelligent, are you sure that you're not the okama?"

"SHUT UP SWIRLY BROW!"

Luffy nods in confirmation. "Yea, it's Zoro."

Usopp sighs in relief while Nami looks at Zoro's arm in thought. "I think this is a great idea. We can set it up when we arrive to Alabasta."

The others nod at the plan as they scatter about for their daily activities.

Rose couldn't help but smile at the turn of events as she walks towards the door. _*Perfect, we should be in Alabasta by tomorrow. I'd better go over what I remember about the arc. All the craziness with Luffy has distracted me from coming up with-*_

"Hey Rose!" The freckled girl snaps out of her thoughts when she sees Luffy walking up to her. "Where are you going? Wanna fish?"

She looks at him nervously before an idea pops up in her head. "Sorry Luffy, but I gotta go to the bathroom!"

She quickly walks inside before he can say anything. He blinks at how she fled before he sighs in disappointment. _*Does she really need that much space? Why is she being so weird?*_

He snaps out of his thoughts when his stomach starts growling. "Food first."

He goes back to fishing with Usopp and Chopper while not noticing that Vivi and Nami were watching the show from the railing.

"She's been like that since we left Drum Island." Vivi says with Nami looking at the door in thought.

"I'll go talk to her."

"I'll come too."

Nami nods to the idea as they head inside to find the distant wind girl.

* * *

Rose starts groaning as she finishes washing her hands in the bathroom then runs her hands down her face. _*I told him that I had to go to the bathroom?! Ugh, I'm so awkward… At least we'll be in Alabasta tomorrow. Hopefully, showing Luffy how I can be like this will keep him from wanting me in-*_

She snaps out of it when she hears knocking from the door. "I'll be out in a second."

"Good, when you're done come to our room. We need to talk."

Rose widens her eyes at Nami's voice before she quietly sigh. "Ok…"

She hears footsteps leaving from the door and quietly groans to herself as she walks out of the bathroom, and into the bedroom where Vivi and Nami are waiting for her. _*What the-?! Both of them?!*_

"Is everything ok with you?"

Rose snaps out of her thoughts from Vivi's voice then looks at her in confusion. "What do you mean?"

Nami scoffs as she closes the door behind them. "You don't need to pretend. I already figured out why you're being so weird around Luffy."

Vivi and Rose widen their eyes at her answer when Rose speaks up. "Did Chopper or Zoro tell you?!"

Vivi looks at her in utter shock. "Those two knew?!"

"Not intentionally!"

Nami chuckles at their surprise before she shakes her head with a small smirk. "No one needed to tell me. It was obvious from the signs: you quickly became buddies with him then suddenly started avoiding him, you enjoy all his craziness, and you blush every time he hugs you."

Rose quirks an eyebrow at the explanation in complete confusion. "Wait, what? How does me getting embarrassed from hugs show you that Luffy asked me to join the crew?"

Nami and Vivi both widen their eyes at the question at the news that Luffy asked her to join. "WHAT?!"

Rose widens her eyes at their surprise before she buries her face in her hands. "You two didn't know did you?"

Nami quickly shakes her head. "I thought you had a crush on Luffy!"

Rose became completely dumbfounded at the suggestion as a small blush starts decorating her face. "What the-?! How did you come up with that?!"

"Like I said, the quickly becoming friends then suddenly avoiding him, the laughing at his stupid jokes, the blushing-"

"Ok, ok, I get it!"

Nami couldn't help but chuckle at her flustered reaction.

Rose quietly sighs in frustration while she runs a hand through her brown hair. "Sorry to disappoint, but it's really not like that."

Once Vivi calms down, she looks at her in confusion. "Luffy really asked you to join the crew? Why hasn't he said anything?"

"Because he doesn't remember. He asked me when he was drunk after Chopper's welcome party. I didn't want to get in another argument with him about it during the trip so I've been trying to give us space."

Nami widens her eyes at this before she groans. "That idiot… You do realize that you can't avoid Luffy like this forever right?"

Rose slowly nods with a frown. "I know, and I'm sorry for worrying you guys about this. I'm going to let up when we reach Alabasta and _if_ he actually asks again then I'll just tell him that I can't join him."

Nami couldn't help but burst out laughing at the plan with the other girls to looking at her in confusion.

"What's so funny?" Vivi asks when Nami catches her breath from the laughing fit.

"She makes it sound so easy that it's funny. Whatever, as long as you stop acting like this when we make it to the island then I won't tell on you. We should be there by tomorrow so good luck."

Both girls can only watch as the redhead walks out of the room with a carefree smile.

Once she's out of room Vivi turns to the brunette with a nervous smile. "I'm sure she's just kidding about it being too simple."

Rose softly sighs while she drops her shoulders. "No, she's right. This is Luffy after all. It's why I didn't let up in distancing myself for so long. If anything, I should be getting ready for another fight."

Vivi blinks in surprise at her stubborn attitude to not become a pirate. "If you say so, I'm kind of surprised though."

"Surprised at what?"

"That you refused. I know it's not my place to say, but you seem really happy here."

 _*How could I not be happy about experiencing an adventure with the Straw Hats? Still…*_ The freckled girl can only shake her head to get rid of the thought. "I can't say that I didn't have fun, but I doubt they're gonna need an astronomer on their journey. If Luffy doesn't ask again then it's all the better."

"That's another thing that's weird. He should've asked again or at least said something about wanting you in by now. Even if he forgot that night, he doesn't seem like the type to say things that he doesn't mean even if he was drunk."

Rose could only give her a small smile before she shrugs. "Who knows, alcohol can make people do crazy things. Me avoiding him like this probably helped too. In any case, there's no point in going into it. I'm gonna stay here and catch up on some reading. It usually helps to clear my head."

She grabs a red book labeled 'Rainbow Mist' from the bookshelf while Vivi stares at her.

The princess can only stare at her distant friend for a moment before she starts leaving. "Well, if you need anything just let me know."

Rose couldn't help but smile as she waves at her while she takes a seat on her futon. "Thanks, I appreciate it."

Vivi nods as she heads out and closes the door behind her.

When Rose was alone, she lost her smile then laid down while opening the book right above her face and started reading. However, instead of taking in the literature her mind only wanders deeper into her situation about possibly being recruited again. _*Vivi's right, if Luffy was serious about wanting me in the crew he would've said something. Unless he's going to say that I'm in the crew at the last second like what he did with Usopp. Looking back on that night, he could've still thought that we were at the end of Alabasta's adventure which can be why he asked me in the first place…*_

"Shit…" She drops the book on her face and starts mumbling into the pages. "I gotta be on my toes for the rest of the adventure… As long as I don't falter it should be fine. After all, if Vivi's able to refuse their offer to join then why can't I? What matters right now is to figure out what I can do at the island."

She takes the book off her face and gets up before she stares out the window in thought. _*I just gotta use what I remember to help out without stepping on anyone's toes. It's been over a year since I looked into Alabasta, what do I remember? Ok, they head to a port town for supplies, then they go to the desert...*_

She widens her eyes when an idea to get them through the desert appears in her head And smirks in excitement. _*Haha, as soon as we get to the island I'm heading to town to get 'that' for the journey. As for when we reach the capital… I can see a few ways that I can back up the others…*_

She nods to herself on how she can help out while talking under her breath. "Ok, that can work. Once I take care of that I'll play it by ear with the rest of the battle and try to lower as much of the damage as possible." _*If I'm lucky I might get to see Robin too. Kind of stinks that she's the crew's enemy here, but it's still really cool to meet her.*_

She couldn't help but grin in excitement at seeing the future Straw Hat Pirate before she looks out the window to see that the sun's almost completely set. "I'd better start that book while I can. Won't be much time to read on the island."

She turns on the light and picks up the book before she returns to her spot on the futon and reads through the book until she falls asleep.

* * *

 _It's a peaceful autumn morning in New York City. Except for Rose, who's running through the streets with her guitar case strapped to her back and an angry blonde cop on her tail._

 _"STOP RUNNING ROSE!" Bobby yells out furiously while Rose couldn't help but laugh back at the cop while she runs through the crowds on the sidewalk._

 _"Hey Bobby, I've always been curious. Did anyone ever stop when you tell them to?"_

 _"SHUT UP!"_

 _She couldn't help but chuckle as she runs across the street along with the crowd and gives him a mock salute. "Looks like I got my answer."_

 _Bobby can only glare at the girl as he dodges the crowds to see his target turn a corner at the end of the block. He quickly followed suit only to see that he lost her. "Dammit!"_

 _He ran down the street, and goes past a small pizza restaurant where a pair of purple eyes was peeking from the large window to see him pass her._

 _Rose couldn't help but chuckle from her hiding spot on the floor, right under the window, as she takes the guitar case off her back then looks around the empty restaurant. "Man, that was close."_

 _"Not close enough." Rose widens her eyes at the high pitch voice then turns around to see a pale, slightly chubby, teenage boy sitting right behind her with his scowling face a few inches from hers._

 _"Ah!" She quickly jumps back and hits her back on the wall while she catches her breath. "What the hell dude?!"_

 _The boy adjusts his glasses as he gets up, takes the guitar case to unzip it. "I should be asking you that kid. Didn't anyone tell you that it's rude to run into other people's restaurants before they open? Better yet, aren't you a little young to be running from cops? What did you do, steal something?"_

 _Rose can only glare at the boy as she gets up, and takes the case back before he can open it. "First off, my name's not 'kid', it's Rose. Second, I'm not that young, I'm fifteen. Third, I didn't know the restaurant wasn't open yet because the door was unlocked, and I apologize for barging in. Finally, I didn't steal anything, all I did was street perform without a permit."_

 _The boy can only sweat drop at the answers to his questions. "Seriously? All you did was street perform?"_

 _She nods as she looks at the old fashioned Italian restaurant that he works in and pats her guitar. "Yea, Bobby and I have been on this chase for about three years now. He's really persistent on giving me a ticket, but my policy is to only pay the ticket if he can give it to me. Anyway, aren't you a little too young to be the owner?"_

 _"I'm not that young, I'm seventeen. I'm not the owner either."_

 _"That would be me."_

 _Both kids turn to the feminine voice by the kitchen door to see a red haired woman in her forties, wearing a red t-shirt and jeans, glaring at Rose._ _"You really expect us to believe that he chased you just for street performing? You could've stolen the guitar for all we know. Timothy, watch her while I go get the cop."_

 _She starts heading to the door when Rose blocks her off. "Wait, please don't get Bobby."_

 _She scoffs at the request as she crosses her arms over her chest. "Give me one good reason not to."_

 _"I can advertise the restaurant during my performances."_

 _The woman looks at her blankly for a split second before heading to the door again. Rose runs up to her to stop her before she raises her hands defensively. "Wait, wait, I can prove that I didn't steal the guitar."_

 _She opens the guitar case and shows the owner a copy of the form she filled out to borrow the instrument from her school. "I borrowed the guitar and case from my school. I have to fill this out every school year and every summer with a small fee in order to use it. I'm planning on buying my own guitar next week with the money I saved up."_

 _The owner looks over the form while Rose opens the outer pocket of the case to show various kinds of change and single dollar bills that can sum up to twenty dollars. "Besides, if I was a thief I'd be a pretty low profile one."_

 _A small book falls out of the case's pocket with her noticing. When Timothy sees it, he picks it up and widens his eyes to see that it's a Volume 18 One Piece manga. "Oh my god, you're an anime fan?!"_

 _Rose quickly turns to see him holding her manga. Mistaking his surprise for criticism, she glares at him while she grabs the book. "Got a problem with that?"_

 _"Are you kidding?!" The boy runs behind the counter and shows her his copy of the One Piece manga. "I have like every DVD and manga volume of the series. Where exactly are you in the anime and the manga?"_

 _Rose can only widen her eyes at the older boy's enthusiasm when she realizes that he's a serious fan. *Ok, that's definitely a first…*_

 _She couldn't help but smile at his excitement as she lets her guard down. "I'm currently working on the Alabasta arc in both the manga and the anime. I know I'm behind but I don't want to miss the anime fillers as I go through the series."_

 _Timothy eagerly nods. "I don't blame you! Hey, don't you think the cop that chased you looks like what Smoker would be if he was blonde?"_

 _Rose drops her jaw at the comparison when she realizes he's telling the truth. "Oh my god, you're so right! He's as persistent as the real Smoker too!"_

 _"He's like his doppelganger!"_

 _Both kids start laughing at the comparison while the owner looks over the two and walks to the back room._

 _When Rose hears the door slam shut, she looks at the closed door in confusion. "Was it something I said?"_

 _He shakes his head as he walks over to her. "Don't worry about my mom, she can be scary when you meet her but she's nice. The name's Timothy by the way."_

 _He extends a hand out for her to shake which she takes with a grin. "It's a pleasure, as I said before I'm Rose."_

 _She picks the guitar case up and straps it onto her back. "Thanks for not turning me in. I should get going before he finds me."_

 _"No problem, but you sure you gotta leave? We can talk more about One Piece."_

 _Before she can say anything the owner walks out with a blue t-shirt that matches the restaurant's logo that she and her son are wearing and hands it over to Rose. "You guys can talk about anime as much as you want while you're working."_

 _Rose widens her eyes at the t-shirt in her hand. "What the-?! Wait a minute, I appreciate the offer, but I don't need a job."_

 _"I'd call it more as paying off your debt to society."_

 _"What? I told you that I didn't steal anything."_

 _"I believe you, but you came into my restaurant not only without permission, but also before our business hours which is a crime called trespassing."_

 _Rose was completely dumbfounded at the explanation while the owner started smirking down at the girl._ _"My name's Naomi and as I said before I'm the owner of this restaurant. You work today's shift as my own form of community service and we forget this ever happened. If you do a good job then I might pay you for your troubles too."_

 _Rose snaps out of her shock then groans in frustration before she extends a hand out to Naomi. "Fine, but you lost your privilege to get the place advertised."_

 _Naomi couldn't help but chuckle before shaking her hand. "I think I can manage. Timothy, show her around the place before opening up for lunch."_

 _Timothy quickly nods before raising his hand to his forehead as if he's saluting her. "Okie dokie!"_

 _Naomi nods as she walks back to the kitchen to get the ingredients ready._

 _Rose takes off the guitar case, pulls the t-shirt over her long sleeved shirt, and turns to Timothy in confusion. "You said your mom was nice?"_

 _He casually shrugs at the question because he's used to his mom's behavior. "In her own way, you don't have any plans or anything today right? If you do I can talk her out of this."_

 _She shakes her head. "No, it's fine. I was only planning on street performing and heading to the library to borrow the next One Piece volume."_

 _"Well you're in luck, I got the next volume here. I can lend it to you if you want."_

 _Rose widens her eyes at the offer before shrugging with a small smile. "We'll see, for now let's get through today."_

 _"Okie dokie!"_

 _Rose chuckles at his high pitched excitement as she follows him for the tour around the restaurant before they open for lunch._

* * *

Rose slowly wakes up from the dream in the middle of the night and looks around to see that Vivi and Nami are fast asleep in their beds. _*They must've came in after I fell asleep. Everyone else should be asleep too…*_

She quietly sighs before getting up and walking out of the room in order to go stargazing.

Meanwhile, up on the crow's nest of the Going Merry Luffy is sulking at being stuck up there on night watch with an empty stomach. _*Man, we didn't catch anything, but an okama today. This sucks... At least Nami said we'll be at the island soon.*_

He looks around for any nearby ships then pauses when he looks down at the deck to see Rose walking outside. _*What's she doing here?*_

He sees her looking up at the night sky only to see that the clouds are blocking the view.

The freckled girl can only groan at the blocked view. "Dammit, I hate when clouds are out at night…"

She looks down at her hands then quirks an eyebrow when she comes up with an idea. "Can I really do that?"

Luffy hums in confusion when he sees her standing on the railing and concentrating on the clouds until she manipulates the wind to push some of the clouds out of her way.

Once Luffy sees that she's the one manipulating them, he looks at the moving clouds with stars in his eyes. "Whoa, that's so cool!"

Rose pauses and looks around for the voice she heard, so he ducks to avoid her gaze. Once she can't find anyone, she shrugs before she goes back to her cloud manipulation. _*I guess I imagined it.*_

When she felt herself getting tired, she stopped using her powers to see that she was only able to move a few clouds out of the way. "Not bad for a first try."

She starts smiling as she takes a seat on the railing and looks through the crack from the clouds to see a few of the beautiful stars in the sky.

While she was distracted, Luffy peeked out of his hiding spot to look down at Rose. _*So she came out to look at the stars? If that part of her is still normal then why is she still being weird? Even Nami got mad at me when I tried to find her after fishing...*_

He rubs his head from the memory of Nami whacking him on the head. _*When Nami whacked me I remembered getting into a fight with Rose, but I don't remember what about…*_

He looks down to see Rose standing back up and slowly walking on the railing as if she's a trapeze artist. He looks at her curiously before he starts climbing down the crow's nest. _*What's she doing?*_

Rose doesn't notice Luffy's attention as she keeps walking on the railing towards the front of the ship for the fun of it, then quietly chuckles at the dream she had. She can't stop the grin on her face from remembering how she took Timothy's offer to borrow the manga was the start of it all. Once she returned the book a week later, she continued to stop by the restaurant to help out at random times until they gave her a work schedule.

She chuckles at how annoyed Naomi seemed about her visiting, but always gave her work to do when she stopped by. _*Naomi really was a hard ass from start to finish. If she didn't blackmail me to work for her that day I don't think I would've gone back. Having a fellow anime fan like Timothy to talk to at work surely helped too. Those two are probably the only people that I couldn't dodge, until now anyway…*_

She starts losing her smile at remembering how she left them behind before she shakes her head. _*They'll be ok without me. I told Timothy that the comet was going to be there that night so he should've figured it out and move on. If Naomi will actually believe that's what happened to me or not, who knows…*_

She quietly sighed before she stopped to see that she's almost reached the front of the ship where the figurehead is. She takes a closer look at the goat figurehead then smirks at the mischievous idea in her head. _*Ok, if this is really gonna be my last night on this ship then I gotta see what the fuss is about.*_

She uses her wind to fly up and sit herself down at the top of Merry's head. The smile on her face couldn't be bigger as she looks around at the view to see the entire view of the ocean and sky in front of her. "Wow, that's-"

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"

Rose jumps in shock and falls backwards until she hits her back on the deck. She groans from the fall before she sees a pair of legs next to her then looks up to see Luffy scowling down at her. "What are you doing sitting on the captain's seat?"

She quickly gets up and rubs the back of her head sheepishly. "Sorry about that, I was curious about why that spot is so important to you. I can see why though, you can see literally everything from up there. Don't worry, I won't sit there anymore."

He nods at what she said before he grins at her. "Good, what are you doing out here anyway?"

She pauses at the question before she sighs. "I wanted to take a look at the stars for a bit, but I think I should try to sleep some more. After all, we got a big day ahead of us."

She turns around to head inside when Luffy blocks her off. "Why have you been avoiding me?!"

She freezes at the question before she shifts her purple eyes everywhere. "I-I haven't been doing that…"

"You really suck at lying!"

She groans at the blunt statement while she scratches the back of her head and mutters under her breath. "I'm probably as bad at lying as you are."

"What?!"

"Nothing, anyway, I don't want to talk about it."

He widens his eyes at the refusal to explain herself before he glares at her. "I refuse your refusal!"

She groans at his stubbornness before she glares up at the taller boy. "Well, I refuse your refusal to my refusal!"

He widens his eyes at the statement when he feels like they had this fight before, and rubs his head. "Why does this feel so familiar?"

Rose widens her eyes at the question as she remembers refusing his refusal during their fight then looks at him nervously. "T-that's because of our argument!"

Luffy looks at her in confusion. "So we really did have a fight? What was it about?"

She quietly sighs while she rakes a hand through her brown hair. "It was something you said when you were drunk at Chopper's welcome party that got me frazzled and got us into an argument. I won't go too much into it because I don't want us to fight anymore. I'm sorry that acting like this made you upset. I'm not going to do it anymore."

Luffy blinks in surprise before he smiles from ear to ear. "Great, I'm sorry we fought too."

She couldn't help but smile back when Luffy's stomach starts growling. She sweat drops at the captain's stomach before she chuckles. "I take it you came out here to try to find some food?"

He shakes his head. "No, I was here for night watch, but I got an idea." He runs inside and quickly comes out with a pair of fishing poles. "Let's catch some fish while we're here."

She tenses up at the fishing pole before she shakes her head. "Sorry, I don't think I'm much help with a fishing pole. How about I stay out here to practice my abilities and when you reel something in I'll catch it."

Luffy nods at the idea before he places one of the fishing rods down and takes a seat on the railing. Rose takes a seat beside him then looks up at the sky before she practices her cloud manipulation again.

Once Luffy casts his line into the ocean, he looks at Rose curiously. "Hey, what were you thinking about when you were walking on the railing?"

She looks at him in shock before she sighs. "Right, you saw me from the crow's nest. I was just thinking about my friends from back home."

He tilts his head in confusion. "Really? What are they like?"

She quirks an eyebrow at the question before she keeps her focus on the sky. "There's a middle aged woman who you should never piss off if you want to keep your head. If you're on her good side though, you can see that there's a pretty kind person under her harsh attitude."

"Oh yea?"

Rose nods as she chuckles from remembering Timothy. "Her son though is really funny. He can talk about random stories with you for hours while making sure that you stay surprised at what comes next. Whenever his mom got mad at me for messing up at work, he would help me out with calming her down too. If anything, I can say he's the closest thing I have to a big brother."

Luffy widens his eyes at the comment before smiling. "Really?! I have a big brother too!"

 _*HOLY SHIT!*_ Rose widens her eyes in utter shock, when she realizes that his brother will be in the next arc, before her wind shoots her up into the air. Luffy quickly stretches an arm around her waist to reel her back down and seats her next to him.

"I thought you got control of your flying. Hey, are you ok?" Luffy asks while Rose pulls out of his embrace while she takes a deep breath.

Once she calms herself down, she gives him a nervous smile. "Y-yea, I'm ok, I was just surprised that you have a brother too… What's his name?"

"His name's Ace! Last I heard he's in a crew called the Whitebeard Pirates."

She slowly nods while she keeps up her smile. "Is that right?"

Luffy eagerly nods. "Yea, he's really cool. I wonder if I get to see him again."

She hesitantly pats him on the shoulder in reassurance. "I'm sure you'll see him soon…"

He nods with a toothy grin before he goes back to fishing. "Yea, it'll be great to see how he's been."

Rose can only nod at his enthusiasm with a small smile while she clenches onto the railing to the point where her knuckles are turning red. "I'm sure it will…"

She looks up at the sky and keeps her gaze on the clouds while she processes that she'll be meeting the second Division Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates. _*Oh my god, I'm so stupid! How can I forget that Ace was gonna be here?! Oh my fucking god, what the hell can I even say to the man?! If I tell him anything about the war, he'll think I'm crazy! If I tell him about Blackbeard…*_

"Hey Rose, are you sure you're ok?"

She snaps out of her thoughts to Luffy's voice to see him looking at her in concern. She quickly nods while she waves her hand dismissively. "Yea, I'm fine. Just thinking over some things. Any bites yet?"

He shakes his head as he focuses on this fishing line again. "No luck yet… Aren't there any night fish or something?"

She shrugs as she looks down at the ocean. "I'm sure there's some kind of nocturnal fish down there. Just gotta keep trying."

Luffy nods as he keeps trying to catch a fish. Once Luffy's attention is back to the ocean, Rose goes back to practicing her cloud manipulation by pushing them to the side. _*Damn, this is nuts… Only in One Piece... For now, I should try to lower the damage as much as possible and make sure Ace and Luffy spend time together. As time goes on, who knows?*_

She slowly nods at her plans for the island as she continues her practice her abilities for the rest of the night alongside Luffy, who both can't wait for tomorrow's new adventure.

TO BE CONTINUED


	12. Chapter 12

Hours after everyone woke up; the Going Merry was sailing peacefully through the Grand Line until a giant white sea cat surfaced from the ocean right behind the ship.

Vivi looks up at the large sea creature in shock. "That's a sea cat!"

Chopper and Usopp scream in fright while Rose looks at the animal with a large grin. _*This is it! This is the last sign showing that we're heading to Alabasta today!*_

Luffy looks at the first sign of food that he's seen for days with pure hunger in his eyes as he runs to the back of the ship to get ready to fight it. "FOOD!"

Zoro sees the large sea cat and unsheathes all three of his swords with determination in his eyes. "OUR FIRST FULL MEAL IN DAYS!"

The sea cat starts trembling at the starving pirates he before slowly backs away from them.

Zoro widens his eyes at the retreating cat. "HE'S GETTING AWAY! SOMEONE MAKE THE SHIP GO BACKWARDS!"

"WE CAN'T DO THAT!" Usopp yells out as he stays back with Chopper.

Sanji runs out of the kitchen after hearing the noise then runs to the back of the ship to join Luffy and Zoro in their mission to catch the fish. "DON'T LET IT GET AWAY! I'LL FILLET IT!"

"NO!" Vivi grabs a broomstick and whacks Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji on the back of their heads with the blunt side of the stick to send them flying forward until they slam their faces on the railing.

The sea cat uses the confusion to his advantage and quickly dives back into the ocean as the boys get up while rubbing their aching heads.

"Why Vivi-chan~?" Sanji whines while Zoro and Luffy look at the ocean where their prey was with disappointment in their eyes.

"You can't eat him! Sea cats are sacred animals in Alabasta!" Vivi says while Luffy keeps his stare at the ocean.

"The food…"

Vivi could only sigh as she walks up to him. "Don't worry; you'll be able to eat soon."

Luffy immediately recovers from his depression and smiles at her. "Really?! What kind of cat?!"

"No cats."

Nami shakes her head at her captain's attitude before she walks over to Vivi. "We should be getting there soon right?"

"Yes, the sea cat is proof of that."

Zoro looks out in the horizon then smirks at the view. "I bet those ships behind us are even more proof."

Everyone looks at the back of the ship and pause when they see a small fleet of ships with the Baroque Works symbol decorating the sails.

Rose goes up to the railing and widens her eyes at the ships. "When did they get here?"

"Those are really Baroque Works ships?!" Chopper asks while Usopp nervous nods while keeping a smirk on his face.

"T-that's right, but that's nothing I can't take care of."

Chopper turns to him in utter shock. "R-really?!"

"Yea, I just need to get the cannon ready!" He goes to his cannon with shaky legs when Luffy runs up to him.

"Wait, it's faster if we go up there and kick their asses! Rose, can you fly us over there?"

Rose shakes her head at the question. "Sorry, but I don't want to risk dropping you guys in the middle of the ocean."

Zoro nods while he keeps his focus on the distant boats. "Those guys are just the grunts anyway. No point in wasting our time with them if they don't notice us."

Nami nods as she grabs the bandages from Chopper's bag. "We should be focusing on getting ready for the island."

The others nod as they use a black marker to write an 'X' symbol on their left arms then wrap the marks with the bandages.

Once Sanji finishes with his bandages, he looks at the others in confusion. "Was this okama guy really able to make himself look like you guys that much?"

Usopp quickly nods. "Not just look like us but it's like he actually is us. You should have seen it."

"I'm not interested in okamas."

Rose rolls her long sleeve over her left arm after she wrapped the bandages around it before she casually shrugs. "Still, seeing that kind of power was pretty cool. Knowing that a guy with that power works for Crocodile is useful too."

Vivi nods before she takes a look ahead to see that her home island's coast is coming into view. "We're heading to the harbor. We should head to that inlet in the west. It's a good place to hide the ship while we get supplies."

Usopp looks over at the direction Vivi suggested then gets to work in steering the ship to the west then rejoins the group.

Luffy starts smirking as he extends his left arm to everyone. "Ok, whatever happens from now on, these bandages are proof of our friendship."

Everyone grins at the captain's words as they extend their left arms to him with pride. Luffy keeps his toothy grin up before he looks over the island. "Now, let's go to dry land and find a restaurant!"

Zoro twitches an eyebrow in irritation before he yells at him. "SHUT UP!"

Usopp, Chopper, and Luffy start bickering at how the captain shouldn't be so carefree while Vivi softly smiles at the group as she stays silent.

Rose couldn't help but smile at the crew before she takes a look at the nearby island in thought. _*I should make sure that I can get everything I need for the trip before the chase.*_

She walks over to Nami while she rubs the back of her head sheepishly. "Hey Nami, do you mind if I fly to town alone? I gotta get some supplies for the trip and I don't know how long it'll be."

Nami quirks an eyebrow at the request before she nods. "Fine, since you're technically not a pirate I don't see you having any issues, but don't take too long. You need to borrow some money too right?"

Rose jolts when she realizes that she's completely broke then nervously nods.

The greedy loan shark takes a small pouch full of beli from her bag before she smirks at her customer. "Now remember, this loan includes a 300% interest."

Rose quietly groans at the unreasonable interest. "Not like I have a choice, but I don't want to leave the debt unchecked after Alabasta's safe so how about this? Every time I help you guys with my powers it's half off the debt."

Nami couldn't help but chuckle at the offer before she nods and hands her the pouch. "Deal, now get going before Luffy makes you fly him to a restaurant."

She quickly nods as she uses her wind to lift herself up into the air and flies off into town before anyone else notices that she left.

* * *

"Will that be all miss?" The stand owner asks while Rose places the last item she requested in her large, light red backpack.

"Yea, that's it." Once she hands him the payment she bows her head. "Thank you very much for your help."

"No problem at all. Have a nice day." He waves her off as she walks away with her backpack strapped on.

As the wind girl looks around at the busy streets of the bazaar and couldn't help but grin at the crowded markets that remind her of her hometown.

 _*So this is Alabasta, it's really nice. Now that I have what I need I should go-*_ She snaps out of her thoughts when she hears people screaming in a local restaurant.

She quickly runs inside the restaurant to see a crowd of people gathered near the counter. She squeezes through the crowd until she reaches the counter to see a shirtless, brawny man wearing an orange cowboy hat sleeping in the meal that he was eating.

Rose looks at the pale man with complete shock in her eyes when she spots the purple tattoo showing Whitebeard's symbol on his back. _*Oh my god, it's Portgas D. Ace! Wait, holy crap, I'm in the restaurant scene!*_

She stays silent as the other customers look at the unconscious freckled man nervously.

"He just collapsed while talking to the owner."

"Is he dead?"

"What if he died from a disease that he got from travelling?!"

Rose quirks an eyebrow at everyone's worries as she goes next to Ace. She puts two of her fingers on the unconscious man's neck just under his wavy black hair, and accidentally causes the crowd to panic.

"What the hell are you doing girl?!"

"Don't touch him! You could catch his disease!"

She rolls her eyes at their complaining as she takes her fingers off him and turns to the crowd. "Will you guys calm down? I'm just making sure that he's breathing. He's not dead, he's just asleep."

"Pwah!" The freckled man quickly sits up and makes almost of the customers to jump back in shock.

"He's really alive!"

Rose face palms at their reactions. "I already said-"

She stopped talking when she felt the bottom of her shirt being slightly pulled up and used to wipe someone's face. She twitches an eyebrow in irritation before she punches the person holding her shirt to get him to let go of her and fall to the floor. "Let's get one thing clear, I'm a lot of things but a napkin is not-"

She stopped herself when she looked down at the person she punched to see that it was the man who just woke up. _*CRAP, I PUNCHED ACE! Wait, I got an idea!*_

Ace groans as he rubs his aching jaw from the punch then scowls up at Rose. "What the hell was that for?!"

Rose plasters a scowl on her face as she wipes Ace's food off her shirt, and then pushes his plate to the right so that it's in front of the stool next to him. "That was for using people like face wipes. You always wipe yourself on people? I got enough to worry about without dealing with your ass, so just sit there and leave me alone."

She takes her backpack off and sits down on the stool that he was sitting in. _*Maybe now Ace won't get sent flying by Luffy and those two can spend more time together.*_

Ace twitches an eyebrow at her attitude before he places his hands under Rose's armpits, and picks her up like a stray cat. He quickly drops her on the seat to the left of him, and then throws her backpack at her.

She quickly catches it before she sees Ace sitting back in his old seat while taking his plate back. "If you got a problem with me then get out. I'm not leaving my seat."

"You…" She narrows her eyes at him as she stands up and goes to use her abilities to move him, but stops herself when she sees the nervous crowd.

She clenches her fists when she realizes that her plan's not working at all so she decides to bide her time, and sits back down in a huff. "Whatever…"

She turns to the chef and waves at him with a friendly smile. "Excuse me; may I have a few plates of food please? Anything's fine."

The chef nods as he makes her food, and then turns to the freckled man. "Did you really fall asleep?"

Ace nods as he gets back to eating. "Yea, I fell asleep."

The other patrons look at him in utter shock.

"In the middle of a conversation?!"

Ace quirks an eyebrow at everyone's surprise as he keeps eating. "What's wrong with you guys?"

"WE WERE WORRIED ABOUT YOU!"

Ace tilts his head in confusion before he turns to the chef and points to the patrons. "Did you hire a comedy show or something?"

The chef slowly shakes his head as he hands Rose a couple of meals. "No I didn't. Anyway, I'm glad you're ok."

Before Ace can say anything he suddenly falls asleep and lands face first into his meal again.

"HEY, QUIT FALLING ASLEEP!"

Rose couldn't help but chuckle at the sleeping man before she gets ready to move him with her wind, but he quickly wakes up. She immediately stops and looks away from him when her stomach starts growling.

She quietly groans before she starts eating one of the meals while thinking of what she can do in this situation. _*I should use my wind as a last resort. If I do something now he'll try to fight me and that's the last thing everyone needs. If I remember right Smoker should be coming here soon. Hehe, that's gonna be great!*_

She keeps eating with a small grin on her face when Ace takes a wanted poster out of his pocket. "Hey old man, have you seen this pirate anywhere?"

The chef quirks an eyebrow as he takes a closer look at Luffy's photo. "What do you need?"

"Have you seen this Straw Hat guy come into town lately?"

He quickly shakes his head. "Sorry, haven't seen him."

Rose stops eating when an idea forms in her head, so she turns to Ace with a small smile. "I've seen that guy around here."

Ace blinks in surprise before he starts smiling at her. "You have? Where?!"

"I'll tell you where he's going to be if you take a seat on that stool next to you." She points to the seat to the right of him in hopes that he'll move.

Ace narrows his dark eyes at her before he gets back to his meal with a scowl. "I'd rather take my chances finding him on my own. Like I said, if you don't want to sit next to me then move somewhere else."

"Looks like you don't have a problem eating and making enemies in public places Portgas D. Ace."

Everyone freezes at the deep voice by the doorway and turns to the source to see a pale muscular man with two cigars in his mouth and glaring at the freckled man at the counter.

Rose widens her purple eyes at the white haired marine captain before her lips curl up into a small smile from the excitement. _*It's really Smoker! Wow, he really does look like Bobby. Only things missing are the police uniform, blonde hair, and one less cigar.*_

She shakes her head to snap herself out of it while Smoker narrows his eyes on the pirate. "Now what's the commander of the Whitebeard Pirates' Second Division doing in this country?"

Everyone else but Rose looks at the freckled man in shock as they move away from him.

"He's really one of the Whitebeard Pirates?!"

"I knew I saw that tattoo before!"

"What's he doing here?!"

Ace couldn't help but chuckle at everyone's surprise before he turns around in his seat and smirks at the marine. "I'm out here looking for my little brother."

Rose pauses at the exchange as she looks between the pirate and the marine. She knows that her last chance is coming up, so she keeps her focus on Ace as she gets ready to use her wind for the right timing.

Ace doesn't notice the brunette's focused stare as he keeps up his smirk at the marine. "So, what exactly do you want from me?"

"Just sit tight and let me arrest you."

Ace casually shakes his head as he sits back against the counter. "Sorry, no can do."

Smoker groans in irritation. "Honestly, I'm looking for another pirate. I don't really have any interest in you."

Ace chuckles at his lack of interest. "In that case, just look the other way."

Smoker begins to get his abilities ready by having smoke come out of him as he gets in a stance. "I can't do that. Not so long as I'm a marine and you're a pirate."

Ace's smirk couldn't help but grow at the sight of the uptight marine. "Now that's a dumb reason, but why not? Let's have some fun."

"GUM GUM ROCKET!"

Everyone quirks an eyebrow at the sudden shout until Luffy flies in through the doorway after he slingshot himself half a mile away from the restaurant and slams into Smoker's back to send him flying.

Ace's eyes bug out in shock of the marine flying towards him, but they bug out even further when he looks down to see that he's being lifted up by a gust of wind as fast as possible.

Smoker misses Ace and crashes through the walls of five buildings while the wind carrying Ace makes him crash through the ceiling.

 _*Shit!*_ Rose cancels her wind while everyone else stares at Luffy in utter shock.

Luffy ignores everyone's stares as he recovers from the flight and laughs in excitement. "Shishishi, alright, a restaurant! Now I can eat!"

Rose couldn't help but laugh at everyone's shock as she tries to find where Ace landed.

Luffy turns to the laughter and widens his eyes when he sees the wind girl. "There you are Rose! Why didn't you take me with you?"

She recovers from her laughing fit as she keeps looking around the restaurant for Ace. "Sorry Luffy, I wanted to make sure I got everything I needed for the trip. To make it up to you though, I'd like to offer you one P-"

She stopped talking when she couldn't find Ace anywhere. She slowly looked up at the ceiling again to see that there's not only a hole in the ceiling, but also the roof to prove that she accidentally made her wind so strong that it catapulted Ace out of the building.

Luffy tilts his head in confusion before he follows her gaze up at the holes in the ceiling. "You want to offer me what?"

"Umm, one p- p-" She quickly looks around then gets up to show him the meals that she didn't touch yet. "One, actually a couple of plates of food to help hold you over!"

Luffy widens his eyes at the plates before he happily grins as he takes her seat and starts eating. "Thanks!"

"N-no problem…" She nervously looks up at the holes again and starts trembling from holding back from laughing at what happened. She has to cover her mouth to try to suppress her giggles, but she knows that she can't hold it much longer. _*Holy crap, when Ace finds out that I did it he's gonna put me on his shit list but that was freaking hilarious!*_

Luffy looks at the trembling girl in pure shock before he stops eating. "Are you ok?! What happened?!"

She quickly shakes her head as she forces herself to grab her backpack and speed walk towards the door. "I-I just saw something r-really funny and I don't want to laugh about it h-here where that guy can come back. I-I'm gonna go outside and g-get this out of my system. I-I'll be right back..."

He tilts his head in confusion as he watches her leave then hears her laughing as if she just saw the funniest thing in the world. He blinks at her loud laughter before he finishes the meals then turns to the chef. "Hey old guy, can I have some more food?"

The old man can only blink at the scene before he prepares some more food with the rest of the patrons staring at the happy rubber man who doesn't know the situation he's in.

Once the chef gives Luffy a few plates of food the captain, couldn't stop smiling as he starts stuffing his mouth with as much food as possible. "Thanks old man! This food's great!"

The chef can only blink as he stares at the carefree boy. "Umm, thanks kid, but… You might want to start running."

Luffy blinks in surprise but keeps eating during the conversation. "Why's that?"

"Don't you know who just sent flying?"

"Who sent somebody flying?"

"Umm, you did…" He points to the various holes behind him from when Luffy sent Smoker flying.

The pirate looks over his shoulder and tilts his head at the multiple holes in the neighboring buildings. "That's a weird passageway for the buildings, so why did you guys make it?"

"YOU'RE THE ONE WHO MADE IT!"

"I did? Huh…" He shrugs as he keeps eating while everyone else nervously waits for the marine and the Whitebeard pirate to come back.

* * *

Ace has seen a lot of things in his life, but he's having a hard time dealing with how one minute he was eating his lunch, then just when he was about to kick a marine's ass the aforementioned marine was sent flying towards him because of god knows what. The hardest thing that he can understand though, was how a gust of wind not only helped him dodge the marine, but sent him flying through both the ceiling and the roof of the building.

After he was sent flying out of the restaurant he flew past a few buildings behind the restaurant until he fell in between two buildings that were already damaged from when Smoker flew through them.

Once Ace was on the ground he groans from the rough landing as he slowly stands up while he adjusts his hat. "What the hell was that?"

Smoker slowly gets up from his spot to see Ace walking back to the restaurant through the holes in the walls and follows suit.

Ace ignores the marine behind him as he keeps walking towards the restaurant. "What kind of idiot just sends a guy flying without warning? And what was with that wind?"

He pauses when he sees that he's walking through a house that has a nervous family sitting at the table then he politely bows to them. "I deeply apologize for disturbing your meal."

The family slowly nods as they watch him walk through their house with a marine marching behind him.

When both men start getting close the hole to the restaurant most of the civilians make a run for it in order to avoid the crossfire.

Once Rose was done with her laughing fit, she starts walking back inside to see Ace and Smoker approaching the building. _*As long as I stay back then Smoker won't think I'm a pirate. I'll catch up after they leave the restaurant.*_

She keeps quiet as she quietly walks towards the crowd when Ace and Smoker stop at the hole to the restaurant and spot Luffy eating away.

Smoker widens his eyes in utter shock at the sight of Luffy being there while Ace starts grinning in excitement. "Hey Lu-"

He's cut off when Smoker suddenly slams his head to the ground. "STRAW HAT!"

Luffy looks up at Smoker but doesn't say anything as he keeps eating while the marine approaches him. "I've been looking for you Straw Hat. Looks like I was right about you being here."

Luffy doesn't respond to him as he keeps eating and gets the marine agitated. "QUIT EATING ALREADY!"

Luffy stops eating but doesn't swallow what he has in his mouth as he gets a closer look at Smoker. "Wait, aren't you…"

He widens his eyes when he remembers who the marine is then spits his food on him. "YOU'RE THAT SMOKEY GUY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE IN ALABASTA?!"

Smoker wipes the food that was sprayed on him off his face with a scowl when Luffy raises a hand to him.

"Wait a second!" He quickly scoops up all the food around him and stuffs everything in his mouth before bowing his head. "Thanks for the meal!"

Rose couldn't help but chuckle when she sees Luffy run while he covers his mouth with one hand to make sure he doesn't spill any food. Her smile quickly fades though, when she sees him stretching his free arm towards her. "Oh shit!"

He quickly wraps his arm around her waist and throws her onto his shoulder as he makes a run for it out of the restaurant.

Smoker widens his eyes at what he just saw as he furiously chases after him. "You did not just kidnap a girl right in front of me you little shit! GET BACK HERE!"

Ace recovers from the attack then quickly gets up and runs after his brother. "WAIT LUFFY! IT'S ME! HANG ON LUFFY!"

The chef can only stare at the chase that left his restaurant when realization hits him. "N-nobody paid…"

* * *

The chase between Smoker and Luffy keeps going through the city with Rose blushing as she tries to get off of Luffy's shoulder but he doesn't let her. "Put me down!"

Luffy quickly shakes his head as he finishes swallowing the last of his food. "I can't, we gotta get away from Smokey! My moves don't work on him!"

Rose sighs at his stubbornness, but lets it go as they keep running through the street.

Smoker grits his teeth at the pirate before he sees his blue haired subordinate at one of the stands ahead of them. "TASHIGI!"

Tashigi looks over at Smoker, but fails to notice Luffy. "What's the matter captain?"

He quickly points to Luffy while he keeps his eyes on him. "Stop Straw Hat, but don't hurt the girl he kidnapped!"

Luffy quirks an eyebrow at the statement before he looks at Rose in confusion. "What kidnapped girl?"

Rose looks from Luffy to Smoker in shock repeatedly before she buries her face in her hands and mumbles loud enough for only Luffy to hear. "Just ignore him… Marines like to jump to conclusions..." _*I can't believe Smoker thinks that I'm a hostage… Might as well play along with it. If he thinks I'm in danger then he'll limit his attacks on Luffy.*_

Tashigi looks at Luffy in shock before she draws her sword at the approaching pirate. "Straw Hat?! Don't worry miss; you're going to be alright! I'll stop him!"

She tries to slash his side that's not carrying Rose, but Luffy quickly jumps out of the way.

"WHOA!" Rose yells from almost getting hit from the attack to look convincing while Luffy jumps on top of one of the stands and hops onto the rooftops.

Smoker bites down onto his cigar at the sight of his prey running from roof to roof before he turns his lower half into smoke to fly onto the roof.

He quickly re-materializes on the roof to run after the pirate. "Tashigi, assemble the men! Comb all the corners of this town and find his crew!"

"Yes sir!" Tashigi runs off on her own to find the other marines while Smoker starts gaining on Luffy.

"White Snake!" Smoker shoots a long line of white smoke out of his arm towards Luffy's legs to try to stop him.

Before the smoke can reach him, Rose secretly uses her wind to push the smoke to the left in order to look like he slightly missed him while she looks at the marine as if she's frightened.

Smoker widens his eyes at how he missed his target. _*How the hell did my smoke-?! I'll worry about it later!*_

He snaps out of his thoughts to see that they're about to reach the end of rooftops when Luffy jumps off the building to run down the street.

Smoker jumps after him to join his men who are joining in the chase after the Straw Hat Pirate.

"Don't let him get away!"

Rose quietly sighs as she keeps inconspicuously deflecting Smoker's devil fruit attacks towards Luffy while she keeps a terrified look on her face to keep up the hostage act. _*Wow, being able to manipulate clouds is more useful than I thought. Too bad I can't fight him for real.*_

She lightly shrugs as she keeps secretly using her wind to block the smoke while Luffy keeps running away from the ever growing number of marines.

* * *

Vivi and the rest of the Straw Hats are resting at the edge of town to rest after they finished shopping for clothes and supplies.

Nami looks down at the dancer outfit she's wearing with a smile. "Thanks for the clothes Sanji, I really like it."

Vivi looks down at her dancer outfit sheepishly. "I hate to complain when you gave us these clothes, but we look more like dancers than citizens…"

Sanji couldn't take his heart shaped eyes off the girls as he smiles at their beauty. "That's fine, dancers are still citizens! As long as no one can tell that you're a pirate and a princess then you should be fine."

He turns to the guys who are relaxing while they eat some of the food they bought after changing into their new clothes. "We even managed to camouflage you guys. At least not to look like pirates, but compared to the girls you look like bandits."

Zoro quirks an eyebrow at Sanji's attitude after he finishes his meat. "You don't look any different from us."

Usopp ignores their quarrelling before looking down to see Chopper lying on the ground while he covers his nose. "Are you ok Chopper?"

The reindeer keeps holding his clothes as hard as he can while he groans in pain. "It feels like my nose is gonna fall off…"

Vivi widens her eyes at the poor reindeer's condition. "Your nose must be very sensitive. This town is famous for its perfume."

Chopper groans as he covers his nose with his hooves. "Perfume?"

"Yea, there are extremely powerful ingredients in them."

Vivi nods a she grabs a perfume bottle from her bag and sprays herself. "Like this one."

Chopper accidentally smells the strong perfume and runs behind Carue. "Ahh! Stop that!"

Sanji couldn't help but swoon at the lovely smell. "The smell even adds to your beauty Nami, I've fallen in love straight down to the gates of hell."

Zoro sweat drops at Sanji's attitude before he takes a swig of his sake. "Can you get any dumber?"

"What was that?!" Both boys start glaring at each other as they get ready to fight while everyone ignores them.

Nami takes a look over the supplies before turning to Vivi. "It looks like we got everything. Where do we need to go Vivi?"

"The first thing we need to do is stop the rebellion. I can't have them causing needless bloodshed. The leader of the rebellion lives in an oasis town called Yuba. To go to Yuba we-"

Zoro cuts her off as he pulls her to the side of the building with the others following in order to hide from the marines that are running further down the street.

"What are marines doing here?" Zoro asks as he peeks past the wall while the others stay hidden.

"See anything Zoro?" Nami asks as she stays hidden with the others.

Zoro quirks an eyebrow when he sees the marines chasing a guy who's carrying a girl on his shoulder a few streets away from them. "Looks like they're chasing some pirate-"

He stops himself when he gets a better look to see that the person they're chasing is actually Luffy who's carrying Rose on his shoulder. _*WHAT THE HELL?!*_

Rose spots the swordsman and takes her terrified mask off while she casually lifts a hand up to greet him as if nothing crazy is happening. Zoro could only becoms more speechless at the greeting as if it's completely normal. _*WHAT THE HELL'S WRONG WITH YOU TWO?!*_

Rose looks around frantically to make her greeting to Zoro look more natural to her act while Luffy keeps running. When he spots Zoro, he changes the direction of the chase and goes to him. "Hey Zoro!"

Zoro jolts when he sees him bringing the chase to everyone and turns to the others. "We gotta run!"

The others look over at the chase coming in and become dumbfounded at what's coming their way.

The marines widen their eyes when they spot the rest of the crew who are scrambling to grab their supplies.

"Those guys are the Straw Hats! Get them!"

Everyone quickly grabs their stuff and runs away while Luffy catches up to them.

Nami runs next to Luffy and whacks him on the head. "Why didn't you wait until you lost them before finding us?!"

"These guys won't quit and Smokey's here too!" Luffy says while Sanji looks at Rose's hostage act and starts glaring at his captain.

"Why the hell are you carrying Rose like that?! Can't you see that she's frightened?!"

Luffy looks at Rose in confusion. "You're scared?! Why didn't you say anything?!"

Rose quickly shakes her head then quietly groans before she keeps her head down to hide her face from the marines, and speaks loud enough for only the group to hear. "I'm not scared, Luffy picked me up when he was making a run for it from the marines. They all assumed this random idea about me, so I have to make it look like I'm afraid."

Vivi quirks an eyebrow at the explanation. "What kind of idea has to make you look-"

"Stop running and let go of the hostage Straw Hat!"

The others widen their eyes at the demand from one of the naval officers then look from the marines to Rose and figure out what's going on.

Luffy ignores the command as he and the others keep running with the marines gaining on them.

Smoker runs to the front of the marines and gets ready to use his powers again. "I'll take care of him!"

He turns his arm into smoke as he extends it to reach towards Luffy. "You're not getting away!"

"That's enough!" A blast of fire blocks the smoke from Luffy causing everyone to stop.

Everyone looks at the fire in shock to see it materializing to reveal Ace smirking at Smoker. "That's as far as you'll go."

Smoker narrows his eyes at the new pirate in his way. "You should have escaped when you had the chance Fire Fist."

Ace couldn't help but snicker as her gets ready to fight. "Smoke can't beat a guy who's made of fire."

Rose takes the confusion to her advantage as she gets off of Luffy's shoulder and hides behind the crowd to avoid Ace spotting her.

Luffy couldn't believe his eyes as he stares at the freckled pirate. "Ace?!"

The rest of the Straw Hats look at Luffy in confusion while Ace smirks at Luffy. "You haven't changed a bit. Get going, we'll catch up later. I can take care of these guys for you."

Luffy nods as he and the others make a run for it with Ace blocking off the marines for them.

Vivi keeps a hold of her bag as she looks ahead "We should get going to the ship. We can go up the river then head to Yuba on foot through the desert."

Luffy nods before he turns around to run backwards with a smile on his face as he sees the flying smoke and fire clashing in the air from where Ace and Smoker are fighting. "Man, I can't believe Ace is here."

"Who exactly is he Luffy?" Chopper asks.

"He's my big brother."

Everyone but Rose looks at him in shock. "Brother?!"

Luffy starts laughing at their surprise. "Yea, he's a pirate too. He should be fine against those guys."

Rose grins at his excitement then looks ahead to see a fork in the road. "Hey guys, which way's the ship?"

Nami looks ahead then and remembers the direction the ship is. "Make a left."

"Ok." Everyone goes through the fork in the road and continues running until they reach the coast where the ship is docked.

Usopp catches his breath then grins at the ship. "I'm so glad we made it."

Chopper nods as he looks around then stops to see that someone's missing. "What happened to Luffy?"

The others look around to see that they lost their captain while they were running away.

Sanji scowls at the road they took before he shakes his head. "We must've lost him at the fork in the road…"

Rose softly grins back at the town as she remembers what happens next. _*This is great, the anime version of this scene is in effect, so Luffy and Ace will get to spend time together! Not only here but on the trip to Yuba too!*_

She couldn't take the smile off her face as she starts loading some of the supplies onto the ship. "He should be fine if his brother's here."

The others nod as they get the boat ready for departure.

"Let's start sailing and search for Luffy from the coast line." Nami says as she climbs onto the crow's nest while the others get to work on departing the ship off the port and by the coastline.

* * *

Luffy stops running to catch his breath in an alleyway and looks around in confusion. "Where did everyone go?"

"Heh, even when I gave you the opportunity to run you still didn't get to your ship. I guess letting you go on ahead was pointless."

Luffy widens his eyes to the familiar voice then looks up with a smile to see his brother grinning down at him from the rooftop. "Ace, there you are!"

Ace chuckles at his excitement as he jumps off the rooftop and lands on his feet right next to him. "It's good to see you Luffy."

"You too Ace!" Luffy quickly grabs a barrel full of water then places it in front of them before both boys set an elbow on the barrel and begin to arm wrestle.

Luffy couldn't help but chuckle as they both struggle to push each other's arm down. "How long has it been?"

"Good question, but it looks like you're still doing things your way Luffy. Just like back when you were a kid."

"Same with you Ace, like when you snuck into the fields and ate a hundred watermelons. Then you spat the seeds out like a gun and ran from the farmers."

Ace groans as Luffy almost pushes his arm down but uses more force to fight back and pull his arm up against Luffy's. "That wasn't me! That was you!"

"But you got those bumps on your head from the farmers."

"That was you too! I watched and laughed!"

Both boys keep struggling with all their might to beat the other in their arm wrestling match until the barrel broke from under them causing the match to end in a draw.

Luffy laughs at the broken barrel while he keeps a hold of Ace's hand. "Looks like we're both the same."

Ace nods as they let go of each other's hand and high five each other with the other. "Yea, just like old times."

Ace digs into his bag in order to grab his canteen before he takes a swig of his water. "Hey, what happened to your friends?"

Luffy blinks in surprise before he looks around. "Don't know, but they should be fine. Hey what are you doing in Alabasta anyway?"

Ace quirks an eyebrow in confusion. "You mean you didn't get my message at Drum Island?"

"Message?"

Ace shrugs before he hands Luffy his canteen. "It's no big deal. I'm just here on some minor business, so I thought I could catch up with you."

"Minor business?"

"Yea, in case you didn't hear I'm a part of the Whitebeard Pirates."

"Yea, I heard. Is that Whitebeard's mark on your back?" Luffy asks just before he starts drinking from the canteen.

Ace nods as he turns around and shows him the tattoo on his back. "That's right, this is my pride." He turns around again while Luffy keeps drinking. "Hey Luffy, why don't you join the Whitebeards? Your friends can come too of course."

Luffy takes his lips off the canteen before he casually shakes his head. "No thanks."

Ace could only laugh at the blunt refusal. "I figured not, just thought I'd ask. Whitebeard though is the greatest pirate I've ever known. My goal is to make him the king of the pirates, and not you."

Luffy starts chuckling at the fact with a toothy grin. "That's fine, we just gotta fight then because I'm the one who will be king of the pirates."

Ace grins at the declaration until Luffy starts drinking from his canteen again. "Hey you mooch! Don't drink it all!"

He takes the canteen out of his brother's grasp and puts it in his bag before he looks around. "We should go look for your friends. It'll be a pain if the marines spot them."

Luffy grins as he follows his brother out of the alleyway and down the empty street. "Ok, they should be back at the ship by now."

"Which harbor is your ship docked?"

"I don't know."

Ace looks at his brother in disbelief. "Geez, you need to at least remember where your ship is docked…"

Luffy starts laughing as he looks around. "Don't worry about it, we'll find it for sure."

Ace starts sighing as he looks around. "You're still the same as ever." He shrugs at his brother's attitude before he turns to Luffy with a smile. "So, what's your crew like?"

Luffy lifts up his hand and starts counting off his crewmates with his fingers. "I have a swordsman who wants to be the greatest swordsman and wears a haramaki. There's a navigator who loves maps, tangerines and money. There's a cook who makes the best food. There's also a liar and a reindeer too!"

Ace laughs at how Luffy described the last two members of his crew. "That's an interesting bunch you got there."

Luffy eagerly nods as he keeps going. "We also got a princess, a duck and a wind girl too! They're all really great!"

Ace nods at the list then stops walking as he processes the last person Luffy spoke about. "Did you say a wind girl?"

Luffy stops walking as well and was oblivious to Ace's tension as he keeps smiling. "Yea, her name's Rose. She loves stars and she's really funny too."

Ace widens his eyes as he remembers how he was sent flying in the restaurant by a gust of wind then starts scowling. "She is huh?" _*Wait, I didn't see Luffy with anyone so maybe it was someone else, but who else could send me flying with wind?*_

Luffy nods at his brother's question before he walks ahead. "Yea, I'll introduce you to the crew when we get to the ship. Come on."

Ace slowly nods as he catches up to Luffy then chuckles. "So you came to the Grand Line with only a handful of people? That's just like you."

"We're not complete yet! We still need a musician."

Ace laughs at his brother's comment then they stop to see that they became surrounded by a group of bounty hunters during their conversation.

Most of the bounty hunters start smirking at the prey they surrounded.

"There's nowhere for you to go Fire Fist Ace and Straw Hat Luffy."

"The bounties on your heads belong to Baroque Works now."

"We'll be promoted for this no doubt."

Ace and Luffy casually walk past the crowd while they were ranting.

"We should get to shore. It's the best bet in finding your ship." Ace says while Luffy nods.

"Good idea."

The bounty hunters looks at the two pirates who are walking away in shock before he goes after them.

"Hey, don't ignore us!"

All the bounty hunters charge them at once but Luffy and Ace casually dodge each attack while punching some of them out.

A large number of them try to jump Luffy but he stretches his arms to grab the clothing line above him. The bounty hunters try to shoot him but the bullets ricochet off his body and back at his enemies.

A large bounty hunter draws his sword and charges towards Luffy, but Ace goes in front of him and catches the blade with his hand.

Ace melts the blade in his hand while Luffy pulls his arms back as long as he can. "Gum Gum Bazooka!"

He pushes his arms forward just when Ace gets out of the way to attack the bounty hunter and send him flying out of town. The rest of the bounty hunters look at the two boys in fright as they start walking away from them.

One of the hunters starts regaining his nerve as he draws his sword. "D-don't let them scare you!"

"That's right, our promotion is riding on this!"

The others nod in agreement as they gives chase to the coast line where Luffy is looking around for his ship.

"You can't escape us!"

The two brothers look back at the hunters and groan before Luffy continues searching for his ship.

"These guys don't learn." Ace says when Luffy widens his eyes at the horizon.

"There's the ship!" Luffy points to the ship then starts waving towards it. "Hey guys!" He starts running off to the edge of the island without Ace.

"Hey Luffy, go on-" Ace stops himself when he sees that Luffy already left him. "Never mind." He shrugs before he begins his fight with the bounty hunters to make sure that his brother can get away.

* * *

Nami searches the coast with her binoculars on the crow's nest when she spots Luffy waving at them from the coast. "Hey guys, I found Luffy!"

The others look up and look around until they see a boy in a straw hat on the coast line before they see him stretching his arms towards the ship until he grabs the railing and slingshots himself towards them.

Everyone widens their eyes when they see him flying towards him, but before he can crash into anyone Rose uses her wind to catch him and set him down on the deck.

Luffy widely grins as he stands up. "Thanks for the catch Rose."

Rose nods while Nami climbs down with a scowl on her face. "You scared us half to death with all those marines you had chasing after us. Can you at least try not to get into trouble?"

Luffy chuckles before he scratches the back of his head. "Sorry about that. Wait, is Ace still there!"

He runs to the railing to search for his brother while Zoro quirks an eyebrow at the name. "Is that guy really your brother?"

"Yup, he left to become a pirate three years ago."

Usopp looks out at the ocean nervously as he looks around to try to find him. "You just left your brother behind?!"

"Yea, he'll be fine. Ace is pretty strong."

Chopper looks up at him in confusion. "How strong is he?"

"Let me put it this way, long before he got his devil fruit I was never able to beat him in a fight."

Nami blinks in surprise at the statement. "There's actually a person that you couldn't beat?"

Usopp can only sweat drop at what he heard. "The big brother of a monster is an even bigger monster…"

Luffy chuckles at the comment as he leans back against the railing. "I guess so, because Ace kicked my butt all the time. I bet now I can kick his butt though."

He starts laughing at the statement while Zoro sweat drops at the claim. "I'd like to see you back that up…"

Luffy keeps laughing when Ace jumps up to the railing from behind. "Exactly who's butt's getting kicked?"

Luffy jumps from the railing when Ace lands on the rails. Luffy blinks in surprise before smiling at him. "Oh, hey Ace. This is the crew I was telling you about."

Rose jolts as she sees him looking around the crew but stays quiet during his scan of the crew.

As soon as Ace spotted Rose, he dropped his jaw as he managed to figure out how he was sent flying in the restaurant. "You're the wind girl?!"

Everyone else looks from Ace to Rose in confusion.

"You know him Rose?" Vivi asks with the brunette nervously nodding while she scratches the back of her head.

"Not personally, we kind of got into an argument at a restaurant and I wound up using my powers on him by mistake..."

Rose turns to Ace and politely bows to him. "I'm really sorry for what happened at the restaurant. I'm still new to my devil fruit and sending you flying out of the building was an accident..."

Luffy widens his eyes at the explanation before he starts laughing. "Shishishi, you sent him flying?!"

She slowly nods as she straightens up and flinches when she sees Ace staring at her with narrow eyes. _*Oh crap, what's he thinking?!*_

Everyone looks at Ace curiously as he keeps staring at Rose. _*If getting me flying was all an accident then why did she keep trying to get me to move before Smoker was sent flying towards me? I'd better watch out for her…*_

Ace snaps out of his thoughts to see everyone staring at him then puts on a smile. "It's ok, it takes time getting used to a devil fruit. Just don't let it happen again."

Rose quickly nods while Ace smiles at the rest of the crew and bows his head. "Pleased to meet you all. Thank you all for taking care of my little brother. I know he can be a handful."

"Not at all." Everyone bows back to him and then straightens up.

Ace straightens up while he keeps a grin on his face. "You don't need to be modest, this is Luffy we're talking about. I know he can be a lot to handle."

"Not at all." Everyone responds back quickly, which makes him softly grin at them.

"You're good people."

Sanji gets his cigarette out before he turns to the kitchen. "Feel free to relax, I'm sure you guys have a lot to catch up on. I'll go make some tea."

Ace quickly shakes his head with a smile. "Don't worry about it, I appreciate the offer but I don't want to impose." He uses his abilities to light Sanji's cigarette for him.

Sanji widens his eyes at the newly lit cigarette. "Wow, this is unexpected."

Usopp slowly nods as he looks at Ace. "He's like the opposite of Luffy."

Rose nods as she looks over the two. "It's really interesting when you take a look at them."

Nami could only stares at the two of them. "One of them just focuses on stuffing his face…"

"While the other only cares about his brother…" Zoro finishes her statement for her as he keeps his stare on Ace.

Chopper starts tearing up at the sight. "I wish I had a big brother like that…"

Sanji shakes his head at the wish. "I wish I had a captain like that."

Vivi looks at everyone in shock then looks to Ace nervously. "I'm sure they don't mean that!"

Luffy chuckles at everyone's input before he smiles at Ace. "Told you they were interesting."

Ace chuckles at his brother's enthusiasm when a fleet of Baroque Works ships starts charging towards them from behind the ship.

Vivi looks back at the ship and widens her eyes in horror. "Those are the Billions' Ships!"

Luffy goes to the railing and gets a closer look at the ships. "Those are the guys that tried to pick a fight with me earlier."

Ace narrows his eyes at the ships. "I'll go take care of them."

Everyone watches in shock as Ace jumps down from their ship and lands onto his small boat.

"What's he going to do in a boat like that?" Nami asks.

Rose casually shrugs as she looks down at the boat. "He should be fine with his devil fruit."

The others look at her in confusion before they watch Ace power his boat with his flames to sail towards the Baroque Works ships. He jumps off his boat that went underwater while every cannon and gunfire phase through him. He jumps over the boats before he turns his arm into fire as he lands on his boat that resurfaced. "FIRE FIST!"

His flames blast through every Baroque Works ship in his path until all the ships become nothing more than a pile of flames.

Everyone watches the one sided battle in a mix of shock and amazement before they stare at the burning ships.

"He roasted them with one blow!" Usopp says.

Rose could only stare at what she saw with pure awe in her eyes from seeing an experienced logia user's power up close. "Wow…"

Ace smirks at the damage before he sails back towards the ship. "See, nothing to it."

Luffy nods as he keeps laughing. "That was awesome!"

"Care to stay for lunch Ace? I insist." Sanji asks while Ace nods.

"That would be great, thank you."

Sanji goes inside then carries out a tray of mugs in one hand and a tray full of plates with the other and distributes them to everyone.

"Here's to Ace joining us!" Luffy says as he, Usopp, Chopper and Rose clash their mugs of water together.

Ace quirks an eyebrow at the declaration. "Who said I was joining you?"

"Then cheers to delicious drinks!" Usopp says as the four of them keep toasting to random stuff.

Nami giggles at their silliness before she turns to Ace. "Don't worry about them. They're just goofing around."

Luffy laughs at the random toasting before he looks to Ace. "You sure you can't join the crew? It'll be really fun."

Ace shakes his head before he takes a drink from his mug. "Can't, I'm going after Blackbeard right now."

Rose scowls at the name as she keeps silent. She accidentally makes hot air blow out of her for a second before she forces herself to eat her meal to control her emotions. _*Teach, damn him…*_

Vivi blinks in surprise at the name. "I heard of him. He's the one that invaded Drum Island."

Ace nods at what she said. "Blackbeard used to be a member of my division in the Whitebeard Pirates, but he committed one of the worst acts of treason that a pirate could do. He killed one of his fellow crewmates and jumped ship. As the commander of the Second Division, it's my duty to take care of him."

He clenches onto his mug even harder at the thought of his former crewmate as he continues. "I came here because I heard that he was seen in Alabasta in a place called Yuba."

Nami widens her eyes at the name of the town before turning to Vivi. "Isn't that the name of the town we need to go to?"

Vivi nods as she pulls a map out of her bag and shows them their destination. "That's right, we just entered the Sandora River. From here, we need to sail to Erumalu then dock there in order to proceed on foot to Yuba. We should be able to find the leader of the rebels there."

Ace hums in curiosity as he takes a look at the map. "You don't say, do you mind if I tag along?"

Luffy quickly nods at the idea. "Yea, that will be awesome! To Ace coming with us!"

Everyone grins at Luffy's excitement as they clash their mugs together and then get back to their lunch.

Rose looks at Ace softly for a moment before she gets back to focusing on her lunch. _*If I'm going to tell Ace anything then I need a find a way to talk to him alone… Luckily there are a few chances for that in the desert. Once the right time comes, I'll decide on what I should say in order to help him out.*_

She nods to herself as she stays quiet for the rest of the meal while the ship continues carrying everyone through the Sandora River and onto their next adventure.

TO BE CONTINUED


	13. Chapter 13

When lunch was finished Rose goes into the girls' room to get ready for their departure. Once inside, she quickly changes from the clothes that she borrowed from Nami into the clean purple t-shirt and blue jeans that she came to this world in.

She neatly folds the clothes that she borrowed, places them in Nami's laundry bin , and takes a look in the mirror before she chuckles at the pizza slice logo on her t-shirt. She looks down at her worn out sneakers then changes out of them and into a pair of slim black slippers that she got in town. After she finishes changing, she takes a look at her small chest to see that something's missing and pulls her necklace out of her t-shirt with a smile. _*Glad I won't need to worry about borrowing Nami's clothes anymore with the spares I got. I'd better get ready for the desert.*_

She goes into her backpack and pulls out a long, blue, thin layered, hooded jacket with dark purple lines embroidered around the waistline and the edges of the jacket. She pulls on the long sleeves to allow the bottom of her jacket to brush the top of her feet.

She gives a small smile to her reflection before she starts securing the bottom button at her mid thigh and keeps going until she secures the final button at the top of her chest.

Once she pulls the silver chain of her necklace out of her jacket to let the red and black crystal hang on the outside of her clothes, Nami and Vivi walk inside and spot the jacket.

Vivi looks over Rose's new outfit with a smile. "I was just about to see if you needed clothes. The jacket looks good on you."

Rose smiles at the comment as she looks at their matching outfits. "Thanks, the dancer outfits look cute on you guys."

"Thank you." Vivi grins at the compliment before she goes to the desk then grabs a pen and paper to begin writing a letter.

"Sanji bought one for you too if you want." Nami says as she pulls out a red dancer outfit with the similar design to hers and Vivi's from her bag.

Rose widens her eyes at the cute outfit before she shakes her head with an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry, I appreciate it, but I don't think I can accept a gift like that. It's too much. Besides, we're covering up for the desert anyway right?"

Nami widens her eyes at the refusal then sighs in disappointment and puts the outfit away. "Yea, we are. It's kind of a shame, but we gotta cover up to avoid getting sunburn. I just thought I'd let you know we have one for you too if you're interested. Did you get water for the trip?"

"Yea, I got a few containers of water, some spare clothes, food, and a couple of other supplies. How long will it take to get to Yuba from Erumalu Vivi?"

"A few days. The sooner we go there and find the rebel leader the better."

Rose slowly nods while she keeps a small smile on her face. "Yea, you're right… Hey, what are you writing anyway?"

"A letter to my father. I want to send Carue off on his own at a different spot in order for him to travel to the capital and deliver it to him."

"In that case, I'll go outside to see if there's a good place to dock coming up." Rose picks up her backpack and leaves the room just before her smile fades away from her train of thought. _*Sorry Vivi, I'm gonna have to put the plan I had to get us through the desert faster on hold until after Yuba. The last thing I want is to make Ace and Luffy's time together shorter than it could be…*_

She heads outside to the deck where she finds Zoro training by swinging a heavy weight with Chopper and Carue using the wind made from the strikes to cool themselves down.

She keeps a small frown on her face as she reaches the front railing and sits next to the figurehead. When she's secured on the railing she leans on Merry's head and starts twirling her finger around the chain of her necklace while she plans out her next course of action. _*As long as I don't slow the group down, the time we go through the desert should be around the same as when I didn't show up in their lives. If I remember the anime version of Alabasta right, we're gonna get separated along the way. If I can make sure Luffy stays with Ace during the separation or vice versa then at least it'd be something.*_

She lets go of her chain to pat Merry's head then looks around to see if there's a place to dock while Nami and Vivi walk outside. They walk up to the front of the ship where Rose is sitting and join her in their search for a place to dock.

Vivi is the first to spot a good place to dock down the river and points to it with the hand that's not holding her letter. "There's a good place to stop the ship."

Nami looks over the location then heads inside to get everyone outside. "I'll get the others to dock. Just hang on."

Vivi nods as she and Rose watch Nami walk inside and quickly bring the guys outside to dock the ship near a flat part of the terrain. When the ship has successfully stopped everyone but Ace and Zoro got off the ship to see Carue off while those two watched from the ship.

Vivi points to the neatly folded letter in her hand so that Carue focuses his gaze on it. "I need you to head to Alubarna palace on your own and deliver this letter to my father. This letter holds everything about Crocodile's plans for this country. It will also assure him that I've returned to Alabasta safely with some friends. Can you do it?"

Carue quickly nods as he lifts one of his wings up to his head as if he's saluting her.

Vivi grins at her brave friend's attitude as she tucks the letter in Carue's green cloak then points to the small barrel of water that's hanging from his neck. "You need to drink your water with care when you're in the desert. Try not to drink too much at the beginning."

Carue nods with determination as he gets ready to start running.

"Good luck Carue!" Luffy says as he and the others grin at the duck as he runs off on his own into the desert.

Once the duck is far from their sights they get back on the boat to continue sailing on the river. After the ship starts moving, most of the others scatter around the ship to get ready for their next stop.

Rose goes back to the back of the ship and ungracefully flies up a few feet into the air. Once she's balanced on her wind, she starts trying to create wind blasts from her hands, but is only able to make a few breezes. She groans in frustration when she tries again and accidentally turns her arm into a strong gust of wind that sends her flying backwards from the force.

She crashes her back onto a crate and smashes it, then slowly gets up while she looks down at her arm. "What the-?!"

"Looks like you really are new to your abilities."

Rose quickly turns around to see Ace, who's wearing a black jacket with flames decorating the bottom edges, watching the show from the railing with an amused smirk on his face. "When did you eat your devil fruit?"

Rose quietly sighs as she rubs the back of her head nervously. "About a week ago. What about you? Luffy said you didn't have yours when you lived with him so it couldn't have been that long."

"I ate mine about two years ago."

"How long did it take for you to get control of your fire?"

"Longer than a week that's for sure. Your body needs time to adjust to your element before you can take full control of it."

She quirks an eyebrow at the advice. "Adjust my body to the element? What does that mean?"

"I'll tell you if you answer this. Why did you keep trying to get me to move my seat at the restaurant?"

Rose freezes at the question and opens her mouth to say something when Nami's voice starts ringing through the air. "HEY GUYS WE'RE APPROACHING A PLACE WHERE WE CAN DOCK NEAR ERUMALU! GET MOVING!"

The two logia users look out to the front deck to see some of the crewmembers coming outside in their jackets to get ready to dock.

Rose takes this opportunity to turn the conversation around. "Let's talk about that later. Maybe during a logia training session?"

Ace widens his eyes at the suggestion before his smirk returns to his face. "After you sent me flying, the last thing you're gonna want is for me to train you."

Rose chuckles at the challenge. "I didn't think you hold grudges for something like that, but I'll take my chances. Will you please teach me?"

Ace only shrugs before he walks away. "I'll think about it."

Rose watches him walk away with a look of surprise before she quietly sighs and walks to the front deck. _*Should've expected that after pulling that Angel Beats gag on him. At least he didn't say no. Honestly, it would be pretty awesome to learn more about my powers from him.*_

"Why are you wearing that Nami?!"

Rose comes out of her daze from Sanji's voice to find herself at the front deck where almost everyone is docking the boat.

She looks around to see Sanji finding Nami's dancer outfit covered in a white jacket with despair then he looks in horror to see Vivi wearing a purple jacket over her outfit. "You too?! What happened to the dancer outfits?!"

"In the desert any exposed skin will wind up terribly sun burnt so we need to cover up." Vivi says, which makes Sanji fall on the deck with a shadow of despair over his eyes.

"My beautiful dancers… I didn't even get to see Rose-chan in her outfit…" He rolls around the deck while he continues to wallow in his self pity.

Rose sweat drops at the display before she pulls her hood over her head, and goes to the railing. She looks down to see shadows swimming below the water's surface then realizes what's going to come next with a large smile. "Sweet!"

The others look at her in confusion before they follow her gaze to see that a group of grey seals with turtle shells on their backs are surfacing.

Luffy looks at the sea creatures in confusion. "What's with the turtles?"

"Aren't they seals?" Usopp asks, but Vivi quickly shakes her head at both of their guesses.

"Those are kung fu dugongs!"

One of the kung fu dugongs barks at them with a smirk on his face while raising his flippers at them.

Chopper listens closely to the dugong's calls then translates for the crew. "He says if you wanna dock here then you have to beat me first you big wimps."

Usopp smirks at the challenge as he steps onto the railing. "Nobody calls me a coward and gets away it!"

Vivi widens her eyes when Usopp jumps off the ship. "Usopp, wait!"

Before Usopp's feet can touch the ground he was picked up by a gust of wind. The others turn to Rose to see her staring at the animals, as if she's not doing anything, while her wind brings Usopp back onto the ship and sets him down in front of Vivi.

"Kung Fu Dugongs are really strong. We can't just charge at them." Vivi says while most of the others nod in understanding. However, while everyone was distracted by the lecture Luffy got off the ship and defeated the dugong that was goading them.

"They're not that tough!"

Vivi looks at to shore in shock to see the dugong lying on the ground with multiple bumps on his head. "Winning's bad too!"

The dugong quickly recovers then bows to Luffy who's confused at the gesture. He becomes even more confused when the animal raises his head and looks at him with stars in his eyes.

Sanji quirks an eyebrow at his behavior. "What's he doing?"

"It's a kung fu dugong law that the one who loses in a fight will become the winner's pupil."

Zoro hums in interest at the law. "So they're all martial artists then." He points to the twenty kung fu dugongs that have Luffy surrounded.

Vivi looks at the large group in shock. "HOW DID YOU GET SO MANY?!"

Luffy ignores her shock and gets in a stance to start his martial arts lesson. "Alright, repeat after me! Go like this!" He throws a punch causing them to follow. "Now this!" He throws a punch with his other hand while his pupils follow their master's action.

Nami watches Luffy continuing his lesson then face palms at the display. "Ugh forget it… Zoro, while they're distracted get the anchor down."

He nods as he and the rest of the guys finish docking the ship.

Rose looks at the martial arts class and giggles before she goes into her backpack to get a small purple camera out and takes a picture of the dugongs. She uses her wind to lift herself up and fly off the ship so that she's facing the goat figurehead. She backs away to get the Going Merry in full view for the camera before she takes a picture.

Usopp looks at the flying girl curiously before he goes to the front to the ship. "What are you doing?"

Rose flies up to the railing and pets Merry's head with a soft smile. "Just taking a picture of Merry before we go. I can get you a copy when I get the it developed if you want."

Usopp widens his eyes at the offer before he nods with a large smile. "That would be great, thanks."

"No problem." She watches him walk off the ship then pats Merry on the head one more time while she speaks under her breath. "Thank you for everything Merry. I can't tell you how awesome it's been to sail with you."

The wind that's holding her up starts fading, so she quickly blows wind out of her mouth to keep herself floating long enough to grab onto the railing and flip over it to land on her back. She chuckles at her clumsy landing before she gets up and joins the others off the ship just after Luffy finishes his martial arts lesson.

"Alright, let's go to Yuba!" Luffy says with a carefree smile.

Zoro twitches an eyebrow as he stares at Luffy's martial arts pupils who are standing behind Luffy. "Hold on, we're bringing them with us?!"

Nami scowls at the idea. "We can't take them with us Luffy."

"The dugongs can't survive in the desert. They need to stay here." Vivi says, but when she and Nami see two of the kung fu dugongs grab onto Luffy's legs and start whining for him to stay their wills start to falter.

 _*So cute…*_ Nami and Vivi go to the side to whisper to one another.

"I don't know why but I feel like we're being mean…" Nami says causing Vivi to sadly nod.

"Me too, what should we do here?"

"I got an idea!" Chopper says as he digs through his bag then pulls out a piece of meat and waves it to the dugongs. "You guys can have this if you stay here."

The dugongs perk up at the bribe and rush over to him with no sign of stopping. Chopper screams in fright when they're about to tackle him, but Rose picks him up with her wind so that he can drop the meat while he narrowly dodges the eager dugongs.

Chopper blinks in surprise at his flight as he's pulled towards the crew then smiles at the freckled girl. "Thanks Rose."

"Don't mention it." Rose gently sets the reindeer down while Sanji gives the dugongs half of the crew's rations in order to make sure that they don't follow them.

After every dugong gets something to eat, they see off the humans with tears in their eyes as they wave their new friends goodbye.

Luffy looks back at his pupils with a large grin as he waves back to them while walking away. "See ya! Enjoy the food!"

Nami frowns at her captain's over excitement. "Don't get so excited, don't you understand the situation we're in now?"

Luffy looks at Nami in confusion as they keep walking. "They said they wanted to come with us. What's the big deal?"

"We don't have enough resources to keep them all, moron. Honestly, I have no idea what we would've done if Chopper didn't persuade them."

"Yea, they kept saying 'we'll follow you to the ends of the earth master!'" Chopper says while Sanji takes a cigarette box from his pocket to take a stick out.

"And now we've lost half of our food supply."

Ace quietly sighs while he turns to the chef and lights his cigarette for him. "He's the best at causing trouble."

"That's for sure." Sanji takes a drag from his cigarette while the rest of the group continues to the desert on foot.

Vivi keeps looking ahead as they walk then widens her eyes when a town comes into view. When they get to the border, Vivi stops in her tracks to take in the remains of the deserted town that's half buried in the sand and looks like it hasn't been inhabited by people for years.

The others stop right after her and take a look at the barren town.

"Is this Yuba?" Zoro asks.

Vivi doesn't take her eyes off the village when she answers him. "No, this is Erumalu. It used to be known as the City of Green…"

Luffy looks at the town in confusion. "The City of Green?"

Vivi slowly nods before she turns to the crowd. "This town is just an example of what Baroque Works has done to this country… And what the people of Alabasta are going through… We should keep going..."

The others nod as they follow her throughout the town while everyone looks around at the town's abandoned buildings.

Rose keeps a scowl on her face as she stares at the broken buildings while he keeps up with the others. _*Crocodile really is a merciless ass. The sooner Luffy beats him up the better.*_

"It really is a ghost town now." Ace says while Vivi slowly nods.

"It's true, however up until recently this was a thriving city full of greenery. Rain was always scarce, but even so the city was always able to manage by saving every bit of water that they managed to collect. But, for three years now not a single drop of rain has fallen in this country..."

Usopp widens his eyes at this. "It hasn't rained here for three years?!"

Zoro quirks an eyebrow before he looks back at the direction of the river. "Still, what about the river we just crossed? Couldn't they have collected water from there?"

"The answer to that is up ahead." Vivi says as she leads the group through the town and continues explaining her country's situation to them. "Never in the history of Alabasta was rain this scarce here. However, there was one place where rain fell more than usual. Alubarna, the capital where the king's palace resides… The people called it the King's Miracle. Then a while back, a delivery that was supposed to be given to my father broke down in a port town and everyone discovered that it was dance powder."

Chopper tilts his head in confusion. "Dance powder? What's that?"

Nami strokes her chin in thought as she remembers what she's heard about the powder. "It's a powder that summons rain clouds by burning the powder to create a misty smoke that rises into the sky then creates artificial rain."

Usopp blinks at the explanation. "Wouldn't something like that be perfect for this country though?"

Nami shakes her head. "It's true that it can benefit this country, but there's a big catch. When you use this powder the smoke takes the clouds that could turn into rain clouds for neighboring places. It's basically stealing the rain from neighboring places. Because of that the World Government placed a ban on dance powder."

Luffy looks at her in shock before he narrows his eyes at Vivi. "Wait a minute! Then your dad's the bad guy here!"

Sanji quickly starts kicking Luffy on the head. "No, you idiot! He was obviously framed by Baroque Works! Vivi-chan's father wouldn't do such a thing!"

Vivi quietly sighs at the argument. "Of course my father had nothing to do with it. But at the same time a massive amount of dance powder was found inside the palace."

Ace widens his eyes at this. "They even had people working in the palace?"

Vivi slowly nods when they reach a dried up river. "This was a canal that used to bring water in from the Sandora River. It was also destroyed. With the canal gone the City of Green couldn't secure water for the town any longer. The people continued to wait, but rain never came…"

The others stare softly at the long ditch that used to be a canal softly as they keep following Vivi while listening to Vivi's story.

"Ever since the dance powder inciden,t the people's distrust in the king grew by the day. Then the fighting began. In order to escape, the exhausted people abandoned the city to search for other oases to call home. Then…"

Vivi stopped walking causing the others to follow as she finished her tale. "The City of Green withered away…"

Rose and Nami soften their faces at the sadness in Vivi's voice, when she spoke about the end result of the town, while the others stare at her with their eyes shadowed from their hoods and hats.

They quickly snap out of it when a strong gust of wind blows throughout the city.

Nami quickly turns to Rose while she covers her eyes from the flying sand. "Quit it with the wind Rose!"

Rose raises her hands defensively while she keeps her eyes shut. "This isn't me! It's the city's wind currents!"

The wind starts growing weak enough to stop sand from flying around, but keeps going while Chopper looks at Rose in confusion. "Really?"

Rose nods when a small sandstorm blows towards the crew.

"Hang on!" Ace says as he and the rest of the group brace themselves for the flying sand that blew past them. The sandstorm was only strong enough to blow sand onto them before it blew past the group and continued its way through the city.

Everyone looks back the blowing sandstorm in confusion as it continues its course through the town.

"What the hell was that about?" Usopp asks while the others just stare at the departing sandstorm.

Rose shrugs as she looks around then widens her eyes when she sees a large bundled up cloth lying on the ground fifteen feet ahead. "Is that a person?!"

The others look at the bundle in shock then they all run towards the person.

"People are still here?!" Vivi asks until they get close enough to see that the person is already dead and is nothing more than a pile of bones wrapped in a grey cloak.

The others look at the skeleton in utter shock except for Vivi who kneels down in front of the skeleton.

The princess gently picks up the skull with trembling hands and stares at it with pure sadness in her eyes. "What did my father…? What did the citizens of this country ever do to deserve this? Everyone worked hard to live on this island in peace and yet Crocodile destroyed their lives as if they were nothing..."

Luffy, Usopp, Rose, and Sanji remain silent to her crying as they drop their bags, walk over to a nearby building, and vent out their fury on the abandoned building until it crumbles into a pile of rubble.

The others watch the collapsing building in a mixture of amusement, annoyance and surprise.

"Geez, they're all kids…" Zoro says as he and most of the others watch the four of them start marching back after they destroyed the building.

Before they came back Ace crouched down on the ground and started digging a small hole in the sand with his hands. "We can bury the skeleton here."

Vivi slow nods as she gently lays the dead person's remains into the hole. She fills the hole with sand then places a stick that was laying into the pile of sand to serve as a tombstone.

"Vivi, let's get moving. We need to go to Yuba right?" Luffy says as he and the others catch up to them.

Vivi nods as she stands up and starts leading the way again. "Yes, that's where we need to go."

Everyone quietly follows her as they leave the abandoned city and journey onwards through the sandy landscape.

* * *

After walking through the long desert for what seemed like hours, the sweltering heat starts getting to some of the crew members.

"Ugh, so hot… The sweat won't even come out..." Luffy whines as he walks with the support of a walking stick along with Usopp.

Rose quietly sighs as she keeps walking, while she feels unaffected by the heat, and starts trying to create a breeze for the crew but nothing's happening. _*Come on, work with me. At least turn my arm into wind again.*_

Nami groans at her captain's whining while she fans herself with her hand. "Quit moaning so much Luffy, you're only tiring yourself out."

He doesn't pay attention as he keeps walking along with the others, except for Chopper who's lying on the back of a sled with Zoro dragging it.

"This hot weather is too much… I'm better off with the cold weather..." Chopper says as he stays lying down on the sled.

Usopp pants from the heat before he turns to Chopper. "That's because of all that fur. Just take off the animal suit…"

A vein pops on Chopper's forehead as he stands up and transforms into heavy point. "What was that you jerk?! Don't make fun of reindeer!"

Usopp jump backs in fright from the sudden transformation. "AAH! YETI!"

Zoro twitches an eyebrow from the argument. "Chopper, don't turn big or else I won't pull you."

Chopper ignores his warning as he yells as Usopp. "WHO ARE YOU CALLING A YETI BIG NOSE?!"

Usopp gets in a stance to pretend he's not afraid. "What was that?! I'll have you know that my nose can-"

"Shut up, just turn back already." Zoro pushes Chopper's head down to force him to transform back into brain point.

Sanji looks over at Vivi and Rose, who aren't acting bothered by the heat at all, curiously. "You two don't seem to mind the heat."

Vivi nods with a small smile. "I was born and raised here, so it doesn't bother me that much."

Rose shrugs as she keeps struggling to create a breeze for the crew. "It's always been easier for me to get cold than to get hot. My wind might be helping too."

She keeps struggling with her abilities until she manages to blow a breeze on the crew while she keeps up with their pace. "Does this feel any better?"

Nami feels the breeze brush through her sweaty skin then nods. "A little, can you make it colder?"

She focuses on the wind she's making as she tries to make it colder. "Any colder?"

Ace feels the breeze blow on him only to feel that it's the same as before, so he shakes his head. "Nope, still the same."

Rose sighs as she loses her focus which makes her wind disperse. "I see, I'll work on it."

She keeps up with the others while she tries to find a way to make her wind cold. _*Ok, I know my wind changes temperatures from my emotions, but which one creates cold? From what the others said, anger makes my wind almost as hot as this heat and warm winds come from happiness… In that case, maybe cold's the opposite of that...*_

She quietly sighs at the thought of what emotion she to make cold air as she keeps walking. _*I'll experiment on this later...*_

"Ugh, so hot…" Luffy says as he looks down at the barrel of water that's strapped over his shoulder.

Nami looks at Luffy, and knows what he's thinking, then sighs at his behavior. "Alright, go ahead Luffy, but just one mouthful."

Luffy grab the straw for the barrel and starts filling his mouth with water to the point where his cheeks start stretching.

Nami sees what he's doing and whacks him on the head. "Don't drink so much!"

"Hey, I should go next!" Usopp says.

"No way, I'm next!" Sanji says as he, Usopp and Luffy fight for the barrel until Nami whacks them on the head.

"SHUT UP ALREADY!"

"Please don't fight guys, you're only wasting your strength." Vivi says, and makes the ones who were fighting break it up, before they continue walking through the desert for the rest of the day.

* * *

When the sun began to set in the horizon, everyone decided that now would be a good time to set up camp for the night.

After helping the others set up the tents, Rose looks around at the empty, desert, landscape then drops her bag and starts walking away from the camp site. "I'm gonna go find some firewood."

The others nod as she walks off on her own and starts collecting as many dry sticks as she can find. When she's far enough to see the campsite as something small, she puts her pile of sticks down in order to experiment on her abilities.

 _*Ok, so if happiness creates warm winds then sadness might be what makes my wind cold… As long as I'm alone it's worth a shot...*_ She softly frowns at the idea of making herself sad as she grabs one of the long sticks from her pile, stands it against a small rock, and takes a few steps back.

She takes a deep breath then creates a small breeze towards the stick.

 _*Sadness huh? Something really sad… "Mom, dad, don't just lie there! Get up, I know you can hear me!"*_ The brunette deeply frowns when the memory of how she felt the day her parents died when she was ten years old starts coming back to her. Her eyes stay shadowed under her bangs as she remembers how lost and alone she felt when she saw the bodies of her only family lying under, blood stained, hospital blankets, and showing no signs of life. She doesn't even notice her wind getting stronger when she recalls how she cried, screamed, shook them and did anything else she could think of to wake them up. But, she quickly learned that day that there was no way to wake up the dead.

She snaps out of it to the sound of her sticks hitting each other then sees that her wind is blowing all around her. She widens her eyes at how it's strong enough to start sending her sticks flying before she cancels out her power.

She goes to the stick she had standing against the rock and grabs it. When she feels that it cooled down from her mood breeze, she sighs with a frown from the confirmation. "Looks like it worked..."

"That cold air really was you?!"

Rose widens her eyes to Luffy's voice and turns around to see him running up to her with stars in his eyes.

She takes a step back from the excited captain in shock and drops the stick. "How long have you been here?!"

"I got here just before you stopped your wind. You were taking too long, so I came out to get you."

She rubs the back of her head sheepishly while she stares at her feet. "My bad, I was getting some more practice in."

"Don't worry about it, that cold wind you made was awesome. Your wind changes because of what you're feeling right? What makes your wind cold?"

She softly frowns at the memory she dug up to make her wind cold, before she picks up her pile of sticks, and puts on a smile. "Now where's the fun in telling you? You can either figure it out now or we can go get these to Sanji so that he can start cooking. Your choice."

Luffy widens his eyes at the choices before he stretches his arms at two different rocks ahead to get ready to slingshot himself towards the direction of the camp. "Alright, let's get some food!"

Rose widens her eyes when she finds herself in between Luffy's arms and runs to get out of his way, but it was too late as he catapults himself to the camp with Rose in his arms.

The wind girl looks at him in shock before she groans while her face heats up. "Dammit Luffy, I could've flown us there!"

"But this is faster!"

"What?! There's no way your gum gum rocket's faster than my-!" She stops herself when they crash onto one of the tents, flatten it, and land on top of Ace who was relaxing inside.

The others look at the pair in shock as they find the tent completely flat except for a lump that's moving around from under them and trying to get out.

"WHAT THE HELL?! LUFFY, I KNOW YOU'RE BEHIND THIS DAMMIT!" Ace continues yelling profanities while he squirms his way out of what's left of the tent to see Luffy standing up with his arms still around a blushing Rose.

The freckled man calms down and raises an eyebrow at Rose's flustered reaction to being held by his little brother as he watches her wiggle out of Luffy's embrace. _*What the?*_

He looks at her curiously while Luffy looks around the crowd and waves at them. "Hey guys, what's up? Oh yea Sanji, we got the sticks so let's-" He's cut off with a whack to the head courtesy of Nami.

"WHAT THE HELL LUFFY?! DON'T CRASH INTO THE TENT!"

Luffy rubs the new bump on his head while he chuckles. "Sorry about that, but we got the sticks!"

"You mean Rose-chan got the sticks. Thank you very much Rose-chwan~!" Sanji takes the sticks from her with hearts in his eyes while Rose ignores his swooning with a grin.

"No problem." She helps Vivi and Usopp fix the tent while the rest of the crew gets the fire and food ready just when the sun has finished setting.

As the night sky grew darker, the cold air came along with it to make almost everyone to start shivering by the fire as they enjoy their meals.

"Why is it so cold Vivi?" Nami asks as she and Vivi rub their arms to keep themselves warm.

"With nothing to block out the temperature, the desert's scorching hot during the day, but the temperature falls below freezing at night."

Rose finishes her meal and starts shivering from the chilly night, so she digs into her backpack until she pulls out a large, light green, slightly thick, sheet from the bag, and wraps herself in it. _*Much better, I'm really impressed with how cold it is out here.*_

"Wow, the stars are really pretty."

Rose snaps out of her daze to Chopper's voice then turns to her left to see him looking up at the starry sky in awe.

She softly grins at his excitement as she follows his gaze up to the beautiful night sky. "It's your first time seeing this many?"

Chopper eagerly nods. "Yea, Drum Island's skies are always covered with thick clouds, so I've never seen this many before. It's really amazing."

Rose giggles at his excitement while she keeps her purple eyes on the stars. "I know what you mean. You can easily see both the dippers from here."

Chopper blinks at the constellation names before he looks at her in confusion. "Dippers?"

She nods as she searches the northern sky for the constellations. "Yea, they're a group of stars in the sky that form a pattern to look like dippers. It's summer right? Then that means the Big Dipper should be on the high part of the northern sky right there."

She finds the Big Dipper high in the sky and points to it then points to the Little Dipper over at the upper right of the constellation. "And over there you'll find the Little Dipper close by."

Chopper looks up at the constellation then smiles in excitement. "Wow, that's amazing!"

Usopp hugs his knees right next to Chopper on the other side, but doesn't look at the stars with them. "It's too cold to be looking at the stars…"

Chopper turns to him with a small smile. "Cold weather doesn't bother me."

Usopp grabs onto Chopper and nuzzles into his cheek. "That's because you're so warm!"

Chopper pushes his face away and tries to get out of his embrace. "Get away!"

The long nosed man shakes his head. "I can't help that you're so fluffy."

Chopper angrily transforms into heavy point. "QUIT MAKING FUN OF REINDEER!"

"AAH! YETI!" Usopp jumps back in surprise while Zoro, who was sitting with his back to Chopper the whole time, turns to him.

"Don't turn big, we need your warmth."

"Yea!" Luffy runs in and wraps his arms around Chopper who changed back into brain point along with Usopp. "So warm."

Rose swallows her giggles at the adorable sight as she watches Zoro join the boys in cuddling the small reindeer for warmth while Chopper tries to get out of their embrace. She takes the sheet off to move away from the group hug to get a picture when a rubber arm suddenly stretches around her waist, and pulls her into the huddle.

"You're warm too Rose." Luffy says as he, Zoro, and Usopp wrap their arms around her along with Chopper.

"What the?! Hey!" Rose's face heats up from being embraced by the guys as she tries to get away along with Chopper but the warm air blowing out of her from her embarrassment, that's almost as hot as when she's angry, makes them want her to stay in their puppy pile.

Sanji growls at the scuffle as he starts walking over to kick the guys. "Get off of-"

Nami whacks him on the head to shut him up. "Shut up, they're not hurting her!"

Rose keeps blushing in embarrassment from the boys' embrace while her warm wind stops blowing, but gives up on trying to escape because of how warm she is in the huddle. She looks at her abandoned sheet and uses her wind to toss it to Nami. "You can use that to warm yourself up if you want."

Nami blinks down at the large sheet before she grins at her. "Thanks Rose."

Rose nods before she wraps her arms around Chopper and forces herself to sleep along with the others.

Ace sits to the side and looks at his brother's group hug with a small grin when Vivi walks up next to him. "It must be really surprising."

Ace quirks an eyebrow at her comment. "What do you mean?"

"I mean with Luffy, I was surprised too at first. Luffy doesn't act like how a regular captain does. Like how this afternoon a simple drink of water started a big fight."

Ace grins at the memory of watching his little brother fighting his crewmates over the water while Vivi continues.

"But you know, the longer I've been with them, the more I've come to understand them. They treat each other more like friends than just crewmates."

Ace chuckles at the analysis. "That's just how Luffy does things."

Vivi looks at him in surprise as he continues. "He hasn't changed since he was a kid. Despite how he is, people seem to be drawn to him. He's always had that charm about him."

She looks over at Luffy before she rubs the back of her head sheepishly. "Right, you probably already knew."

He nods as he softly grins at his sleeping brother. "He and I _do_ go way back. Still, thank you."

"Huh?"

"You were worried that I was concerned right?"

Vivi nods with a soft grin. "Yes, but it doesn't look like I need to worry after all. Thank you for listening, good night."

He waves her off as he watches her go over to Nami to share the sheet with her, so they can cuddle together for warmth.

Ace doesn't go to bed yet as he grins at the sleeping crew he's travelling with. When he sees Rose's face, he stops and loses his smile as he remember's her blushing from Luffy's hug. _*Is she interested in my little brother or is she just shy? I still don't know if her sending me flying was all an accident or not either... Dammit, she's getting more confusing by the minute… A logia training session might be a good idea after all...*_

He nods to the plan to find out the truth about the the suspicious girl as he goes into a tent to rest for the night, and await the next part of their journey through the desert.

TO BE CONTINUED


	14. Chapter 14

The stars begin to fade for the coming dawn when Rose slowly wakes up to find herself still being cuddled by not only Luffy but also Chopper, Zoro and Usopp which brings back the blush on her freckles at full force. _*Dammit, why do I keep getting caught in these hugs?!*_

She squirms her way out of the huddle, makes the boys to stir until she's free and then they quickly fall back asleep. She quietly sighs as she dusts herself off then looks to see Nami and Vivi sleeping under her sheet, but doesn't see Sanji and Ace outside. _*They must be in the tents. Might as well put this time alone to good use.*_

She sees her backpack on the side and opens it up to grab a journal with a hard, golden colored cover and a blue pen. She takes a seat in front of the fire pit while she faces her sleeping friends then begins writing down everything she knows about the Timore Comet. _*I still can't believe I just saw it a little over week ago. I got some pretty useful information that night.*_

She finishes writing all of her collected data then starts jotting down her beliefs on how she left her world. _*In order to leave, you need to harness the comet's energy with an object that has the ability to absorb its energy. After this object contains enough astral energy, you need to have a desired destination in mind. Soon afterwards, you will find yourself in the world of your choice. The approximate times it takes for departure and travel are unknown...*_

She quietly sighs at her incomplete research then looks down at the red and black crystal hanging from her neck. _*It's the only thing I have that could've done it. If a wish was all it took then hundreds, maybe thousands, of people would be going missing every time the comet showed up. Since I remember seeing the comet, there's no chance for it to erase a person's existence after they left so it would've caused a panic. The necklace doesn't look any different from when I was in New York though… Maybe it only had enough energy for a one way trip. Not that I'm complaining.*_

She finishes scribbling down her notes and theories on how she came to this world when she sees a pair of legs standing in front of her. She looks up to see Ace scowling down at her. "You got a minute?"

She nods as she closes her journal and puts away her supplies. "What's the matter?"

"You still want a training session?"

Her purple eyes begin to widen at the question before stars occupy them as she nods. "Absolutely!"

The others start stirring from the noise, so she quickly covers her mouth.

When they fall back asleep, Ace chuckles at her excitement. "Good, let's go someplace where we can't wake them up."

"Ok." She gets up and follows him away from the campsite with an eager smile on her face. _*This is perfect! I can talk to him while we're training! What parts to actually say though...*_

When the two of them are far enough from the campsite for it to barely be seen, the wind girl faces her fellow logia user with pure excitement in her eyes. "Ok, so how are we doing this?!"

He chuckles at her enthusiasm while he crosses his arms over his chest. "First things first, tell me what you've been able to do with your wind."

She blinks at the instruction before she counts the things she's done with her fingers. "I've been able to fly and make others fly, I've created gusts out of my hands and mouth, and I've changed the temperatures of the winds coming out of me but not the air itself. Recently, I've learned that I can manipulate clouds, and as you saw on the ship I turned my arm into wind, but that was the first time."

Ace nods at this as a small smirk forms on his face. "Good, now I know how much fire I should use for our sparring match."

She widens her eyes at the statement. "Wait, what? Shouldn't we be going over basics first?"

"Who's the teacher here?"

She twitches an eyebrow at his arrogant attitude before she answers him. "You are..."

"Then I decide how we do this. You can learn faster in a real fight. If you want, we can make this more interesting too."

She quirks an eyebrow at the suggestion. "Interesting how?"

"If I win, you answer every question I have for you honestly."

She pauses at the demand. _*Is he that suspicious about the restaurant?*_ She keeps on a poker face to hide her worries while she responds with a small scowl. "And if I win?"

"Whatever you want it to be, just tell me what it is now so I know what I'm getting into."

She blinks at the response before thinking over her choices. She knows that if she asked him to stop going after Blackbeard it could save him, but it would ruin the storyline by Blackbeard going after Luffy. Even so, she can't in clear conscious say nothing and let the pirate walk off to his death either.

When she figures out something in between the two possibilities, her bangs cover her eyes as she gives him her request. "What I want is for you to listen…"

He tilts his head at the request. "To listen?"

She slowly nods before she looks the taller man in the eye. "I want you to listen to everything I have to say wholeheartedly and without any questions. Whatever you do after hearing me out is up to you. Can you agree to that?"

He nods before he gets in a stance. "You got a deal. Ladies first."

"Gladly." She creates a gust of wind to lift him up and low sweep him so that he falls on his face.

He growls in irritation when he feels her lifting him up again, but before she can do anything he starts throwing fire balls at her. She tries to blow them away but she only creates a small gust that strengthens the flames instead.

Rose widens her eyes at the large fireballs before she jumps out of the way, and releases her hold on Ace while he keeps throwing them at her. She scowls at him while she dodges the last fireball and blows the sand under them up to create a smoke screen.

Ace wipes the sand from his dark eyes as he tries to spot his opponent when Rose flies to him from the side and tries to punch him, but her fist goes through him.

"That's not going to work this time!" He throws an uppercut to her stomach to send her flying up before he throws another fireball at her.

She quickly flies to the side to dodge the fire then quickly lifts Ace up while she tries to turn her arm into wind, but settles with creating a strong wind blast to throw him down. Before he could hit the ground through he turns himself into a large ball of flames that consumes the wind holding him.

Rose widens her eyes at his escape as she lands a few feet away from the fireball. She gets ready for another attack, but Ace quickly re-materializes, except for his arms that are still a pile of flames, and launches two fire fists at her. Rose flies up to dodge the flames but they were redirected towards her.

"Oh, crap!" She tries to push the pursuing flames away, but Ace manipulates the fire fists to avoid her wind. She widens her eyes at the approaching flames when a whirlwind, that's a little taller than she is, circles around her to form a barrier. As soon as the flames collided with the whirlwind, they join into the cyclone to create a firestorm surrounding her.

"HOLY SHIT!" She quickly stops her wind while Ace stops the flames before she could get hurt.

As soon as the flames were gone, Rose quickly lands on her feet while Ace runs up to her to see if she's alright. "You ok?!"

She quickly nods before she looks down at herself then she brightly smiles at him. "That was freaking awesome! I never made a barrier before! Did you see how your flames morphed with the barrier too?! That was so cool!"

Ace sweat drops at the freckled girl's excitement. _*That comment sounds like something Luffy would say... She's not even scared that she almost got hurt...*_

He softly chuckles before he starts smirking at the shorter girl. "You do realize we're not done here right?"

She pauses when Ace punches her, but his fist goes through her. She throws a punch at his direction to blast wind at him, but he manages to grab her hand and flip her over his shoulder. She rolls to the side to dodge his kick then stands up while he throws a few fireballs at her. After she maneuvers out of the way, she sees Ace right in front of her and starts throwing punches at her while she continues to dodge. She throws a punch in his direction in order to throw him off guard with a wind blast by her other fist. However the arm she was using to fake him out accidentally turns into a strong blast of wind, that collides with his punch, and sends them both flying backwards.

Both of them land on their backs roughly with Ace quickly able to get up while Rose struggles to get on her feet. He walks up to her as she slowly stands up while she lightly pants from exhaustion. She tries to create another blast of wind with her fist, but nothing happens with her wind as she punches through him. He quickly retaliates by punching her in the face and knocks her down. "That's enough."

"Not yet." She tries to use her wind but fails again, so she low sweeps him with her leg while he was off guard and tackles him. Before she could pin him, he flips her over and pins her arms down while she struggles. She tries to create some wind to blast him off her, but the only thing she can create in her tired state is a small breeze.

"It's over; you can barely use your wind anymore when you're this exhausted." Ace says as he keeps her arms pinned down with both hands.

She growls in frustration before she stops struggling and sighs in defeat. "Alright, you win. Get off."

He does as he's told and gets up with his opponent slowly following.

Rose quietly groans at her aching muscles as she dusts the sand off her, and then chuckles at the fight. "Ok, I'm not gonna lie. That fight was a lot of fun. Still, all that because of what happened at the restaurant?"

"At first, but what you said before the fight got me interested. So, what is it that you want to say to me that I shouldn't question?"

She quietly sighs before she puts a scowl on her face. "What do you know about Blackbeard's power?"

He quirks an eyebrow at the returned question. "His power?"

She slowly nods before she answers him. "I doubt he had this power when he was with your crew or else he would've been more famous. Blackbeard ate a devil fruit called the dark-dark fruit. It's a logia devil fruit that allows him to control darkness and gravity at will. His fruit also lets him nullify a devil fruit user's ability, including logia users, so we can get hit by him just as how we can get hit by someone with armament haki."

He widens his eyes at this as he remembers the devil fruit Blackbeard stole from his crewmate. _*That's the devil fruit he stole from Thatch?!*_ He keeps a scowl on his face as he narrows his eyes at her. "And how do you know this?"

"I've seen him fight with it. I don't know where the bastard is now though."

"Why are you telling me this now?"

She shrugs at him. "Didn't have any good opportunities to tell you before. It's one of the reasons why I wanted to train with you. I know you're going after him no matter what, but I want to at least help you fight with him on equal terms. Since he knows how your powers work from fighting alongside you, I can give you everything I know about his devil fruit. That is, if you want it."

He could only blink at her answer before he nods. "Go ahead."

"Even though Blackbeard can nullify a person's devil fruit ability and can hit us, he's able to get hit himself. His fruit don't let his enemy's attacks pass through him like ours can. If he doesn't absorb his enemy's attacks, his body takes the blow. He can also nullify a person's devil fruit power only by touching his enemy; once he loses contact, they can use their powers again. The last bit that I can give you is that he can pull you towards him with the gravitation power of his darkness. If you can somehow avoid his gravitational pull or use it against him then you have a chance."

He blinks at the detailed explanation of his powers, and then looks at her in confusion. "You caught all that from just watching him in a fight?"

She nods while she looks at him with a soft look in her eyes. "I saw enough to know how dangerous he can be. Listen; just be careful when you're facing him. If you can get some sea stone before the fight then I recommend using that against him. And just... Just don't get yourself killed."

He widens his eyes at the concern in her voice at the last sentence. "Why do you care so much about this?"

"I have plenty of reasons, but if it'll make you feel better I'll give you three of them. First, you obviously care a lot about the people close to you since you're going after Blackbeard to avenge your crewmate and I respect that. Second, if my information can help you stop Blackbeard from hurting anymore people then I'm happy. And third…"

She walks up to him and looks him in the eye with a serious look on her face. "Now this the most important reason to help you, so listen very carefully."

He swallows a lump in his throat from the determination in her eyes, then slowly nods before Rose's lips curl up to a smile. "Freckled logia users like us gotta stick together. We're rare enough as it is."

Ace completely froze from the reason before he looks at her as if she just said the stupidest thing in the world. "Did you really just say that?"

She blinks at his reaction, then strokes her chin with a contemplative look on her face. "You're right, 'freckled logia users' is too long of a name. How about 'freckled elements'?"

Ace scowls at the smart remark as he goes to whack her. "Don't be stupid! That's not a reason at all!"

Rose quickly takes a step back from his annoyed form to avoid the hit before she laughs at his reaction to her joke. "Hahaha, I'm sorry, I had to do it. The tension was getting too high for me."

She sees that he's still not amused, and quietly sighs before she gives him a soft frown. "As for the real third reason. It's that losing you would break Luffy's heart, and that's the last thing we both want."

He calms down at the real third reason then sighs. "I see, I'll be careful then."

When she hears his answer, she grins in satisfaction. "Thank you." She looks up at the sky to see that the sun's already begun to come up. "We should get back."

She starts walking towards the camp when Ace blocks her off. "Hold it, I still have questions for you."

She quirks an eyebrow at the declaration before she shrugs. "Sure, what do you want to know?"

"Why did you keep trying to make me move at the restaurant?"

She knits her eyebrows at the forgotten question. "You're still mad about that?"

"I'm more curious than mad now."

She quietly sighs while she rubs the back of her head. "Well, call me over cautious, but we haven't eaten for days so I knew Luffy would come bull rushing into the first restaurant he sees. Luffy told me that he had a brother in the Whitebeard pirates and I figured it was you. I wanted to keep you away from the doorway so if Luffy did run into the restaurant then you wouldn't get sent flying, and you two could catch up."

Ace was completely dumbfounded at the explanation he was given. "You did all that for the slight chance that Luffy was going to send me flying?"

"I was right wasn't I? Of course, I knew you wouldn't believe me if I told you so I did what I did. Not that it worked though." She snorts from holding back her laughter as she remembers how Ace flew out of the restaurant.

Ace scowls at how she's holding back from laughing at the memory. "It's not funny!"

 _*You're right, It's hilarious!*_ She takes a deep breath calm herself down from the memory then gives him an apologetic smile. "I really am sorry about what happened. Can we call a truce?"

He looks down at her for a moment before he nods with a small smile. "Sure and you know, I'm pretty impressed with how well you know your captain. Not a lot of crewmembers would think that far ahead for them."

She pauses at the statement then looks at him in confusion. "Nobody told you?"

He quirks an eyebrow at the question. "Told me what?"

She looks at him in shock before she rubs the back of her head sheepishly and awkwardly chuckles. "Hehe, well, the truth is I'm not really a member of Luffy's crew. Actually, I'm not even a pirate."

Ace looks at her in complete shock at the explanation. "Wait, what?!"

Rose giggles at the pyro's shock. "I take it that means we're not leaving anytime soon?"

Ace scowls at her as he keeps blocking her path to the campsite. "You got that right! What the hell is going on with you and my brother's crew?!"

She settles down to chuckling at his reaction before she waves her hand dismissively. "Relax, I'll tell you what's going on. I guess the best place to start is at Little Garden where I met them." _*As long as I don't tell him about coming to this world then no harm done.*_

He nods as he listens intently to her story on how she found her devil fruit on Little Garden and first met the Straw Hats.

* * *

As the sun began to rise in the campsite, Luffy began to groggily wake up to see that he's huddled with only Usopp, Zoro and Chopper. _*Huh? Didn't we pull Rose in here too?*_

He looks around to find the wind girl missing then shrugs it off. _*Probably went to get some food.*_

He got out of the huddle, stretched, then looked inside the openings of both the tents to see that his brother missing as well. _*Huh? Where's Ace?*_

He looks around, but there's no sign of him on the campsite as well. "Weird."

He shrugs before he looks over the camp to see if he can grab some food from one of the bags, but the ones that he looked through so far didn't have anything. He saw Sanji's bag being held tightly by the blonde chef, and quickly turns away from the tent.

He spots Rose's bag and goes inside to see a few apples inside. "Awesome!" He takes a bite into one of the fruits when he sees her journal in the bag. He looks at it curiously before he reaches in her bag to grab it.

"What the hell do you think you're doing Luffy?"

Luffy stops himself from grabbing the book when he hears Sanji's voice, then slowly turns to see his chef awake and walking up to him furiously. "Don't snoop into Rose-chan's things!"

He kicks Luffy away from Rose's bag, then looks around curiously. "Speaking of which, where is Rose-chan?"

Luffy rubs his aching head from where Sanji kicked him then shrugs. "I don't know, Rose and Ace weren't here when I woke up."

Sanji widens his eyes at this. "What?! I'll go look for them!"

He goes to leave the camp when Luffy stops him. "Hang on Sanji, you gotta make breakfast. I'll go look for them."

He reluctantly agrees as he gets breakfast ready for the others while the rubber man goes off to find them.

Luffy continues to wander away from the camp until he hears his brother's laughter. "Hahaha, are you serious?!"

"Shut up, it's not funny!"

Luffy widens his eyes at Rose's voice and quickly runs in their direction. He goes up a hill to see Rose talking to his brother with an irritated scowl while Ace has an amused smirk on his face from hearing how Luffy recruited her when he was drunk. He looks at them in confusion before he hides behind a nearby rock. _*What are they talking about?*_

Neither logia users notice Luffy's presence when Ace asks her another question. "And he really doesn't remember a thing?"

She softly sighs before she shakes her head. "Nope, you'd better not say anything either!" She points an accusing finger at him, which makes him to laugh even more.

"Hahaha, relax, I won't. Still, I'm kind of surprised. With the way you act around Luffy I thought things were different between you two."

Both Rose and Luffy look at Ace in confusion before Rose speaks up. "What are you talking about?"

"I mean like yesterday, your face turned red when you were being held by Luffy after you two crashed into my tent."

She widens her eyes at the statement before she covers her face with her hand. "Not again, it's not what you think."

Ace quirks an eyebrow at this. "Oh really? Then what's up with you?"

She groans at the question while she avoids his gaze. "You try suddenly getting hugged so much when you're not used to it. It's freaking embarrassing…"

Ace blinks at the explanation of her shyness before he walks up to her, and makes her to look at him in confusion. "What are you-?"

He pulls her into a slightly tight hug before she can say anything else.

Luffy widens his eyes when he sees the freckled girl's face heat up from his brother's embrace. He could only scowl at the sight as he grows more irritated by the second. _*Why do I feel so annoyed right now?*_

He goes to get out of his hiding spot while Ace looks at the brunette in his arms to see that she's really blushing from his hug. "Wow, you really are-!"

Both Luffy and Ace freeze when Rose flies Ace and herself up with her bangs covering her eyes.

Ace looks down to see that they're five feet in the air, then when she turns herself around in his arms, he starts looking at her nervously. "Um, Rose, what are you-?! Whoa!"

Rose quickly grabs his arms then flips over to throw him off her and watch him land head first into the sand. Her face is still beet red when she quickly lands and glares at the collapsed pirate. "Don't hug me for some weird experiment dammit!"

Ace groans from the pain as he pulls his head out of the sand. Before he can complain, both logia users freeze to Luffy's laughter and see him laughing wholeheartedly from seeing Rose throw down his brother.

Rose widens her eyes at his laughter and realizes that he was eavesdropping. _*Shit, did he hear me talking about him recruiting me?!*_

Ace twitches an eyebrow at his brother's laughter before he gets up, walks up to him, and stretches his rubber cheeks out. "What the hell's so funny?"

"Rose flipping you-! Hey, cut it out!" Luffy whines from the pain of Ace stretching his cheeks further, so he tries to punch him but his fists go through him.

Rose giggles at the brotherly spat as she watches Ace release his brother's cheeks then walks up to him. "How long were you hiding here?"

"A little while before you threw him. What were you guys doing out here anyway?"

"Ace and I had a sparring match."

Ace snickers at the explanation. "More like a one-sided fight."

Rose glares at him. "Don't lie, I threw a few good hits back there."

Ace chuckles at her complaint. "For your level yes. How about later I give you a proper training session?"

Rose freezes at this before she quickly nods with a large smile. "Yea, that'll be great!"

Ace nods while neither of them notice how Luffy's frowning at the way she's smiling at him. _*That annoying feeling's back. Why am I-*_

"Hey Luffy!"

He snaps out of it from Rose's voice to see both her and Ace looking at him in confusion.

"You alright Lu?" Ace asks when Luffy's stomach starts growling.

"I'm hungry. Ready to go back?"

Both of them nod as the three of them walk back to the camp with Luffy unconsciously making sure that he's walking in between them.

Ace quirks an eyebrow at Luffy's assertiveness to walking in between him and Rose, but doesn't say anything. _*What's the matter with-? Wait a minute...*_

He realizes that Luffy saw him hugging Rose, then looks from Rose to Luffy for a second before a shadow of a smirk forms on his face. _*Oh, this is gonna be fun.*_

He chuckles to himself as the three of them make their way back to camp where the others are beginning to wake up for the new day.

* * *

Hours after everyone continued their journey, the heat started getting to a few of the crewmembers again.

"Hey Sanji, can we have lunch yet?" Luffy asks for the third time in the past hour.

The chef groans at the repeated question as he smokes his cigarette. "For the last time no. Not until Vivi-chan says it's ok to take a break."

Luffy turns to her with a smile. "What do you say Vivi?"

She quietly sighs before she sees how tired some of the others are getting so she nods. "How about we take a break at the next rocks we find?"

Luffy quickly agrees to it while he turns to the others. "Alright, to the next rock! Whoever wins rock-paper-scissors has to carry everyone's stuff!"

Zoro quirks an eyebrow at the idea. "Shouldn't the loser carry the stuff?"

Luffy ignores the question as he gets his fist ready. "Alright, let's go!"

Everyone, but Rose and Ace, got themselves ready for the game by huddling together while the two of them stay back. Luffy glances over at Ace and Rose while playing to see Ace smiling at her and joking around soft enough for only her to hear.

Rose widens her eyes at the quiet joke he just made before she giggles, but doesn't realize that the captain's watching them the whole time.

Luffy couldn't stop himself from frowning when Usopp taps his shoulder. "Hey Luffy, what are you doing? You won."

Luffy turns to his crew and looks to see that his hand's in a fist while the others were showing scissors. "Eh?!"

"That's right, which means you gotta carry our stuff." Nami says as she, Vivi and the rest of the Straw Hats place their things on a makeshift sled.

Luffy reluctantly takes the sled and starts walking while the others casually walk ahead of him.

Rose looks back to see Luffy tiredly dragging his crew's things at the back of the herd, and looks around to see nobody else paying attention to him. She starts slowly walking to get in the back of the group just in front of Luffy, so that nobody notices, then uses her wind to lift the sled up a foot in the air.

Luffy pauses at the lack of weight then turns around to see that he's pulling a flying sled.

"I won't tell if you won't." Luffy turns to Rose's soft voice to see her walking backwards to face him with a small smile.

Luffy quickly nods with a large smile. "Yea, thanks. Hey, can you make some cold air too?"

She pauses at the request before she rubs the back of her head and turns around to walk forward again. "Sorry, but I haven't perfected it yet. Maybe some other-"

"Hey guys, I see some rocks up ahead!" Everyone stops at Usopp's voice and looks ahead to see a group of large rocks up ahead.

Luffy immediately brightens up at this. "Alright! Break time!" He runs as fast as he can to the rocks and accidentally bull rushes Rose to send her flying until she lands on the back of the sled.

"What the hell?!" Rose groans at the rough landing as she sits up on the luggage then widens her eyes when the flying sled starts falling from her lack of focus. She quickly gets the back of the sled flying again, before it hits the ground, while Luffy continues pulling it to the rocks.

The crew can only watch in shock as they watch their captain run off with the wind girl on the back of the sled.

Ace couldn't help but chuckle at their departure while he walks ahead. "Let's get going before Luffy eats all the food."

The others quickly nod as they catch up to him to get to the shady spot.

As they keep walking, Nami walks next to Ace in the back of the crowd. When they're out of earshot, she starts talking to him with a smirk. "I saw Luffy's reaction to you whispering to Rose during rock, paper, scissors. Did you do that on purpose?"

Ace nods before he returns the smirk. "Just thought I'd give my little brother a couple of pushes to recruit her if he really does like her. I'll stop if you want."

She quickly shakes her head. "Please, don't stop on my account. I want to see where this goes."

He keeps the smirk on his face as they begin to catch up to the others. "You got it."

Not another word was spoken about the mischievous plan as they rejoin the group and continue on their trek to the next resting point.

* * *

As soon as he makes it to the rock, Luffy laughs in excitement as he let's go of the sled. "Finally, some shade!"

He lays down to relax in the cool shade while Rose releases her wind on the sled to gently set it on the ground.

She jumps off the luggage pile and chuckles at the crazy ride Luffy dragged her into. "Hehe, there's never a quiet moment around you is there?"

Luffy shakes his head with a large smile while he relaxes. "Nope, but where's the fun in that?"

She chuckles at his carefree answer. "You got a point there." She looks back at the path they took while thinking over what comes next. _*The separation filler should be coming soon. How exactly did it happen again? Maybe a sandstorm…*_

"Hey, speak to me!"

Rose snaps out of her thoughts from Luffy's yelling then turns around to see him hunched over a group of five collapsed cranes. _*Oh shit, not these guys!*_

Luffy quickly turns around and runs back the path where he left the others. "Rose, stay here and watch the birds! I'm gonna get Chopper!"

"Luffy, wait!" Her calls were ignored as she watched Luffy run off on his own.

She quickly turns around to see that the birds have already begun to grab some of the crew's stuff. She twitches an eyebrow at their bold move before she walks up to them menacingly while she glares at them. "You got five seconds to drop their shit and run away before I send you flying, you damn con artists!"

The birds pale at her frightening glare, but they didn't drop the two bags they grabbed as they make a run for it. "HEY!"

She uses her wind to lift them up and fly them toward her when they flap their wings and fly away. "Get back here!"

She flies after them above the rocks and chases after the two birds that are each holding a bag. When she caught up to them she began to have a scuffle with them in mid air with the birds pecking at her while she punches them and tries to grab the bags. While Rose was distracted with the two thieves, the other three birds swooped down to the rest of the luggage. They manage to grab a bag before Luffy and the rest of the crew show up.

"Those are warusugi birds!" Vivi says while the birds make a run for it.

"GET BACK HERE!" Luffy yells as he chases after them and leaves the others in the dust.

The others sweat drop at how fast he's running before Sanji looks around for Rose. "Hey, what happened to-?!"

He cuts himself off when the two birds Rose was fighting were knocked out and slammed to the ground right in front of them.

The others look up at the scratched up girl in shock as she lands in front of them with a grin. "What's up?"

Nami blinks at her casual attitude before she looks down at the unconscious birds holding their bags. "What the hell happened?"

Rose takes the bags from her two opponents and glares down at them. "These little scam artists tried to steal the bags when Luffy left!"

Vivi snaps out of her surprise then looks at everyone apologetically. "I'm sorry, I should've told you guys. Warusugi birds like to steal from travelers by playing dead."

Usopp looks at her in shock. "They play dead to steal stuff?!"

Sanji takes a drag from his cigarette before he smiles at Vivi. "There's no need for you to apologize Vivi. If anyone should apologize it's Luffy for letting himself get tricked and leaving Rose alone with them."

Rose quietly sighs at the comment while she places the bags back on the sled. "It's not a big deal. I can at least take on a couple of birds. Speaking of Luffy, where did he go?"

"He went after the birds after they stole another bag. He's been gone for a while though." Chopper says as he points to the path he took.

Nami quietly sighs before she takes a seat in the shade. "He'll be back when he's hungry. While we're waiting for him let's just enjoy the peace."

The others nod as they start relaxing, except for Rose who's looking out at the path Luffy took. She looks out at the desert in thought as she remembers what's coming next. _*Wait, isn't this when that pervy camel comes in?! Well, it could be worse. At least he makes it easier for Nami and Vivi.*_

She shrugs at the thought before she relaxes with others while they wait for Luffy to come back.

* * *

The birds being chased by Luffy have already begun to fly away when Luffy was gaining in on them. "STOP ALREADY!"

The birds have quickly flown just out of his reach when giant Venus fly traps start popping out of the sand. Luffy widens his eyes at the giant plants coming after him as he jumps in the air to get avoid getting eaten. However, one of the plants quickly attacked him from the side and engulfed him.

Luffy trashes in the fly trap's mouth to escape but it was too late as the giant plant swallows him whole and burrows its way back into the sand. As soon as it's back in the ground, Luffy punches through the stem and breaks off the head to escape.

He quickly gets up to make sure he didn't lose his hat then looks down at the dead plant curiously. "What the hell is this thing? A mystery plant?"

He blinks at the statement he made before he brightens up. "Neat!"

He freezes at the sound of someone shouting then looks to see that another Venus fly trap is trying to swallow a camel, wearing a two person saddle, who's struggling to keep the plant's mouth open.

Luffy looks at the camel curiously as he walks closer to the plant. "What are you doing?"

The animal groans at the question when Luffy chuckles. "You're pretty funny."

The camel calls out to it while Luffy looks at him curiously. "Huh? You want me to help?"

The camel quickly nods, so Luffy punches out the plant and frees the camel from its clutches. The camel walks up to Luffy while he smiles at him. "Good thing you didn't get eaten."

He freezes as he remembers what he was doing then furiously looks around for the birds. "Those birds got away when I was fighting the mystery plants!"

He groans in frustration then sighs. "Man, the desert has a lot of weird creatures in it. Hey camel, what are you doing out here anyway?"

The camel blinks at the question then freezes as he looks back, and makes Luffy to look at him in confusion. "What is it?"

He looks at the direction the camel is staring at when the sand starts shifting. The camel looks out in fright while Luffy looks out curiously only for the ground to starts shaking. Neither of them move when the sand begins to rise up.

The camel quickly snaps out of it, and bucks Luffy onto his back before he makes a run for it just before the sand fell to reveal a giant purple lizard.

Luffy doesn't look back as he grips onto the camel's neck to keep himself from falling off. "Run faster camel!"

The camel can only nod as they keep running with the lizard on their tails when they start approaching the spot that the others are relaxing in.

The group looks in shock to see Luffy riding a camel towards them with the giant lizard coming after them.

Usopp and Chopper scream in fright at the sight of the gigantic lizard. "What the hell is that?!"

Vivi widens her eyes at the animal when she realizes what it is. "It's a sandora dragon! They're the largest reptiles living in the desert."

Ace snaps out of his surprise then chuckles. "Luffy's gift for attracting trouble never fails."

Zoro groans in frustration as he gets ready to unsheathe his swords. "What kind of crap star was he born under to attract trouble like this?"

"The hell if I know!" Sanji says as he and Zoro run towards the incoming chase.

Luffy keeps hanging onto the camel while trying to slow him down. "Wait, camel! Stop!"

The camel doesn't listen when Zoro and Sanji get close.

"Hey, Luffy need some help?" Zoro asks when Luffy nods with a smile.

"Sure, thanks!" Luffy jumps off the camel and punches the lizard while Zoro began slicing him and Sanji kicked him on the head.

Everyone else but Rose and Ace watched in utter shock at the sight of the three of them taking down such a large lizard.

"When you watch them fight, you can almost pity the monsters…" Nami says.

Usopp slowly nods. "You got that right…"

Rose holds back a chuckle from their distress then turns to the princess. "Hey Vivi, do those lizards normally hunt alone?"

Vivi widens her eyes in horror before she looks around as if she's searching for something. "They don't! They hunt in pairs!"

The others look at her in shock when the sand starts rising behind them. They quickly turn around to see another sandora lizard being uncovered from the sand.

Ace looks at the lizard casually for a moment before he smirks. "You wanna fight? Then let's go."

The others could only stare as they watch the sandora dragon gets him in his mouth only for Ace to burn him to a crisp from the inside. When Ace emerged out of his charred mouth unharmed, everyone but Rose stared at him slack jawed while the freckled girl applauded him.

Luffy, Sanji and Zoro drag their prey towards the rock with the camel walking besides then before they see the second lizard.

"Awesome, we have as much meat as we need for lunch now!" Luffy says while Sanji gets to work on cooking the meat they caught.

Zoro takes a seat on the rock then looks at the camel curiously. "Hey Luffy, what's with the camel?"

Luffy takes the first piece of cooked meat before shrugging. "I dunno, I found him getting eaten by a mystery plant when I was chasing the birds."

Usopp looks at the saddle on the camels back curiously. "With a saddle like this, it's definitely not a wild camel."

"Think we can ride it?" Sanji asks.

Vivi looks over the camel curiously. "That would be great if we could. With his saddle it looks like two people can go on at a time."

Luffy quickly finishes his meat before he tries to get on the camels back when the camel bites his head to stop him.

"Ow!" He steps away from the camel while he rubs his head from the bite.

The camel starts grumbling, so Chopper begins to translate for him. "He says 'I'm a freedom loving, and compassionate camel. Thank you for rescuing me. To show you my appreciation I'll allow your crew to ride me, but no men allowed.'"

Usopp, Luffy and Sanji immediate go up to the camel and start thrashing him. "What the hell?!"

Once the guys are finished pounding him, Nami walks up to him and caresses his chin with a smile. "I'm so sorry, my crewmates can be so mean sometimes. Now then, what should we call you?"

Luffy raises his hand for a suggestion. "Idiot."

Sanji follows suit with his vote. "Moron."

Usopp gives them his next suggestion. "Dumbass."

Nami ignores their ideas as she gets on the camel's back and pets his head. "Eyelashes it is then."

Zoro sweat drops at the name after he finishes his lunch. "That's the weirdest one out of all of them."

Nami continues to ignore the boys as she rides Eyelashes towards the other girls. "Which one of you wants to go on first?"

Rose shakes her head at the suggestion before she takes a step back. "Sorry, but I'm not interested in riding a pervy camel. Besides, I can always fly if I decide not to walk. You can go with her Vivi."

Vivi looks at her in shock before she looks at Nami and gives her an apologetic smile. "It's ok, I can still walk."

"Come on Vivi, it's fine." Nami says, so the princess nods and climbs on while half of guys are booing at the camel.

Once Vivi's secured on the second seat, Nami takes the reins. "This is perfect. We can get to Yuba much faster now. Let's go Eyelashes!"

She snaps the reins causing Eyelashes to run away from the group as fast as he can.

The others just stare in shock as the girls were leaving them behind. "HEY, WAIT FOR US!"

The camel ignores their call as he keeps running away with the girls. The group quickly gets their stuff and starts running in hopes of catching up to the girls.

Nami looks back to see that they're already far away from them, so she calls out to them. "YOU BETTER HURRY GUYS! IF YOU GET SEPARATED THEN YOU'LL NEVER LEAVE THE DESERT ALIVE!"

Rose runs a hand through her hair in frustration as she flies up to see where they went, but she loses sight of them. _*Shit, this was how they got separated in the anime?! Just how fast is this camel?!*_

She quickly lands next to the guys and points them in the right direction. "I didn't see them!"

The others widen their eyes at this before they run as fast as they can to hopelessly try to catch up to Nami and Vivi. "WAIT FOR US!"

TO BE CONTINUED


	15. Chapter 15

Nami and Vivi have completely disappeared, and left Rose and the boys alone to wander the desert in search for them.

Rose stays floating ten feet above the group to be on the lookout for the girls and the camel as the others continue travelling on foot. While Rose's searching for the girls in the air, she keeps blowing a small breeze to the boys below her to help them stay cool.

Even with the breeze helping to cool them down though, Chopper still can't handle the heat, so he's lying down on a small sled while Zoro drags it for him.

"Thanks for letting me stay on the sled Zoro." Chopper says.

The swordsman keeps his grip on the sled while he looks ahead. "Don't act polite. It's stifling."

"Nami-san! Where did you go?!" Sanji whines as he looks around desperately for the missing ladies but with no luck.

Usopp shakes his head at the cook's dramatics before he adjusts his goggles over his eyes to try to get a better view. "I got nothing. You still can't see them up there Rose?"

She shakes her head in disappointment as she keeps her eyes on the barren horizon. "Sorry, no luck…" She keeps looking around then looks down at Ace while she tries to figure out her next move. _*If we're going by the anime then we'll be meeting those sand pirates soon. The girls should be with them by now. Ace somehow wanders off during the filler too. It'll be a lot easier to make sure he doesn't wander off, but how am I gonna do that?*_

She huffs as she goes back to her search for the girls. "How the crap can a camel run that fast anyway?"

"The hell if I know." Ace says when he looks back to see his little brother falling behind because he's still dragging the sled full of his crew's luggage. "Hey Lu, you ok there?"

Luffy nods as he keeps dragging the sled. "Just tired…"

He looks up at Rose with a large grin. "Hey Rose, can you take me and this stuff up there with you for a bit?"

Rose pauses at the idea, as she figures out a way to stop Ace from drifting away, before she nods with a large smile. "Yea, no problem. Hey Ace, you mind coming up here too? I can use another set of eyes."

Ace freezes at the invitation before he nods up at her with a small smirk. _*She's making this too easy.*_

Luffy lets go of the sled when he knows that Rose has a hold of it then grins at her. "Thanks, hey, can you make your wind colder?"

She tenses up at the request. "Umm, maybe later. I'm not fully used to it yet. Hey, how cold was it when I made it anyway? Was it like Drum Island cold?"

"No, it wasn't that cold, but it still felt good."

"Glad to hear, I'll try again later." Rose turns around with her back to the boys to get back to her search. _*One way or another I gotta get my cold mood breeze under control. Maybe if I try a memory that's not so strong the next time then I can keep it from going crazy. Wait, who says it has to be personal memories? If I remember some sad anime moments then maybe-*_

Ace taps her on the shoulder to get her attention, so she turns around to see him smiling at her. "I'm sure you'll figure it out. We can go over it later if you want."

She shakes her head at the suggestion with a small smile. "Thanks, but I'd rather get the hang of this part of my wind on my own. What I really want to learn is how you create a fire fist."

Ace blinks at the request before he chuckles. "Oh really?"

Her smile begins to grow as she looks down at her arms. "Yea, the way you took down those Baroque Works agents was really badass! If I can do something like that with my wind, that would be really useful."

A small smile appears on his face at the idea as he pats her on the shoulder. "Now that's something I wanna see. Next time we take a break we can give it a try. We're gonna have to be alone though, so that nobody gets hurt."

She raises an eyebrow at the small affection, but she doesn't think much of it before she nods with a large grin. "Sounds good to me. For now let's get back to searching for the girls."

The freckled man does as he's told and turns away from her to be on the lookout. When he spots his brother frowning at their conversation from the corner of his eye he couldn't stop himself from smirking. _*Won't be long now.*_

Luffy continues to scowl as he looks around for a way to distract himself from the annoying feeling he's having in his chest. _*Dammit, I keep getting that weird feeling today. It's like a mystery feeling. Why does it keep coming back?*_

He looks around then stops when he looks down at the group of small cacti that are planted on the ground nearby. "Hey Rose, can you put me down?"

Rose turns around and pauses at the frown on Luffy's face before she slowly nods. "Umm yea sure, you gotta take the luggage back though."

He grabs the sled while he keeps his focus on the ground. "Sure, thanks for the lift."

"No problem." She gently sets Luffy down along with his sled without saying another word.

As soon as the captain's safely back on the ground, Rose turns to Ace and speaks soft enough for only them to hear. "Hey, don't you think Luffy's been acting weird today?"

Ace pauses at the question before he turns to her with curiosity on his face. "Weird how?"

"Like he's been spacing out a bit and just now he looked like he was ready to punch something. Do you have any idea on what could be bugging him?"

 _*Does she really not get it?*_ Ace turns away from her to hide his devilish grin from the situation. "I'm sure he's fine. He's never been good with hot weather like this. He just needs to cool down."

"Hey Luffy, what are you doing?"

Rose and Ace stop their conversation from Usopp's voice, and they quickly look down to see Luffy not walking anymore and letting go of the sled.

The rubber man ignores his question and looks past the group in fright. "IT'S A TSUNAMI!"

Everyone widens their eyes on the accusation while Luffy starts running around like a crazy person and shouting about the fake tsunami.

Rose looks around then widens her eyes when she sees the bitten pieces of cactus on the ground. _*Oh crap, he didn't!*_

She quickly lands herself and Ace with the guys while Luffy keeps screaming about a tsunami.

"What's going on with Luffy?" Zoro asks they keep watching their captain start running around.

Usopp looks over at the cactus then sighs. "It really wasn't a good idea after all…"

Chopper tilts his head in confusion. "What wasn't a good idea?"

"After Rose placed him back on the ground, he chomped on some of the cacti growing over there." Usopp points to the bitten cacti, so the others to turn their attention to the plant.

Chopper widens his eyes at the half eaten plants then jumps up. "Those are mescal cacti! They're used to make hallucination drugs!"

"WHAT?!" The others look at him in shock while Luffy grabs his sled and glares at the group.

"THERE YOU ARE CROCODILE! I'M GONNA KICK YOUR ASS!" Everyone looks at him in shock as he runs up to them with the sled and starts swinging it at them.

"Oh shit!" Rose and the others jump back from Luffy as he keeps swinging the sled towards them.

"CROCODILE'S NOT HERE LUFFY!" Usopp yells as he dodges the sled, but his words fell to deaf ears as Luffy continues his rampage.

Luffy slams the sled on the ground and roars while everyone dodges the falling luggage and debris of the broken sled.

"Not good." Sanji says as he, Zoro, Rose and Ace get ready to fight the crazed captain.

Usopp jumps back in fear while Chopper digs into his bag for something that can help.

Luffy can only see the hallucination of Crocodile in front of him as he pulls his fist back. "GUM GUM-" Before he could punch anyone he immediately fell asleep after Chopper managed to sneak up on him and knock him out with a tranquilizer shot.

The small reindeer raises the needle up triumphantly after he knocked out his captain. "That'll take care of him!"

The others sigh in relief while Sanji gives him a thumbs up. "Way to go Chopper!"

Ace walks up to his little brother and picks him up over his shoulder before he chuckles at his antics. "Just like when we were kids. Sorry about this guys, I'll take care of carrying him."

Nobody has any objections as they pick up their own bags, and place Nami and Vivi's bags on Chopper's sled, then get back on their journey to find the girls.

Usopp sighs in frustration as they keep going. "What do we do now? We completely lost them."

Rose quietly sighs as she looks ahead. "No clue."

Everyone keeps looking straight ahead as they continue walking for what feels like hours.

Rose remains quiet as she keeps walking in the front of the group and not paying attention to her surroundings. _*Alright, that was nuts even for Luffy. I don't remember Ace being there during Luffy's rampage, so maybe now we won't lose him and those two can spend more time together. Still, what's with Luffy's mood today? Is it really just the heat?*_

She scratches the back of her head then sighs when she can't figure out what's going on with her friend. She looks back at the group, then stops when she finds a pair of brothers missing. "What the-?! Where did Ace and Luffy go?!"

The others stop and look around to find that they lost their captain along with his brother.

"When did we lose them now?" Zoro asks while Rose flies up.

She looks around for any signs of them but there's no luck. _*Dammit, this is just like what happened in the anime! How the fucking hell did Ace get lost in the first place anyway?! He even took Luffy with him! Looks like my wish for them to spend more time together came true at least…*_

She chuckles at the irony of how everything played out before she lands on the ground. "Looks like our list of people to search for doubled. Sorry about this."

"There's nothing for you to apologize for Rose-chan. If anything, it's Ace's fault for wandering off with Luffy." Sanji says when everyone starts to hear rumbling.

The others look at each other for a moment before as they hear the rumbling coming louder from up ahead and start running towards it in order to find out what's going on.

* * *

Small beads of sweat begin to form on Ace's face as he walks with Luffy sleeping on his shoulder. He stops to take a break and starts turning around. "Hey guys, any- Huh?"

He looks around in confusion to find that he and Luffy are the only ones in the area. "Crap!"

Luffy slowly wakes up to his brother's voice then looks around. "Hey, what happened to the others? Did they get lost?"

Ace turns in shock to see that Luffy's awake then puts him down. "Looks like it. I could've sworn they were just here a minute ago. Even if we turn back now they'll be gone, so we should go ahead and see where it leads."

Luffy nods at the plan with a toothy grin. "Sounds good to me. Let's go."

Ace leads the way for them to travel when a large pink scorpion that's larger than the Going Merry digs itself out of the sand right in front of him.

Ace twitches an eyebrow before he steps forward. "Hey Lu, mind if I take care of this one?"

"Sure."

Ace lights his arms on fire and launches a fire fist large enough to roast the scorpion to a crisp before the giant bug could take a swing at the pirates.

Luffy laughs in excitement from the show. "Shishishi, that was awesome Ace."

Ace nods with a smirk as he returns his arm to normal but doesn't say anything as they continue onward.

Luffy stares at Ace while he realizes that he isn't getting annoyed. _*Huh, that mystery feeling isn't coming back. Maybe I'm getting better.*_

Ace catches Luffy staring then looks at him curiously. "What are you doing Luffy?"

Luffy snaps back to reality before he looks ahead. "Nothing. Hey Ace, do we have any food we can use for lunch?"

The freckled man blinks at the question, but before he can say anything they begin to hear a small rumbling. "What the-?!"

Both brothers freeze when a large purple gecko, that's taller than both of them, digs himself out of the sand. Once the reptile is out of the sand, he stands on his hind legs in front of them.

Ace groans at the giant gecko in their way. "What's with animals always getting in our way here?"

Luffy casually shrugs. "Beats me. He doesn't look like he wants to fight though. He's just standing there."

The two of them side step to the right to get out of the way, but the gecko mirrors their movements to stay in their way. They try again by side stepping to the left but the reptile continues to follow their movements. When they side step in opposite directions he continues following Luffy.

"Why'd you choose me?!" Luffy asks as he keeps sidestepping in different directions but the lizard keeps blocking him.

Ace laughs at his brother's distress as he watches the dance show in front of him. "Want some help Lu?"

Luffy shakes his head as he gets his fists ready. "No, I got it. Gum Gum Pistol!"

He punches the gecko on the head, to make him collapse with a large lump growing on the top of his head. Luffy finally manages to sidestep without him blocking then looks the lizard over. "Hey Ace, do you think we can eat him?"

The reptile quickly tears up at the thought of being eaten while Ace strokes his chin. "Actually, I think he'd make a better ride for us."

The gecko quickly nods at the second option with Luffy grinning in excitement. "Really?! Awesome!"

He goes to get on the lizard's back first, but Ace beats him to the punch. "I'll drive."

Luffy begrudgingly gets on behind Ace before the gecko starts running ahead with his new passengers on his back.

* * *

Rose and the boys quickly run towards the source of the large rumbling sound. When they make it up a hill, they stop to see a large pirate ship, with an open umbrella on the figurehead, sailing on the sand.

Chopper looks at the ship in shock as it sails to the left of their direction. "Whoa, that ship's sailing on land!"

Rose slowly nods as she keeps her amethyst eyes on the vessel. _*So these guys are the desert pirates. Wait, since Luffy's not here then the mast won't break right?! Maybe we'll just befriend them then!*_

Usopp adjusts his goggles to get a closer look on the ship then hitches his breath when he sees Nami and Vivi tied up to the mast, with Eyelashes hogtied and surrounded by pirates wearing umbrella hats. "Nami and Vivi have been caught! Oh, and the camel too."

Zoro and Sanji turn to him in shock while Rose flies ahead.

"Hey, don't be rash!" Usopp yells out to her, but she doesn't hear his calls.

"Dammit, let's go!" Zoro says as he runs down the hill with the others following.

Sanji runs ahead of the guys and tries calling out to the wind girl ahead of him. "Come back Rose-chan!"

Rose blinks at the call, but couldn't hear him, so she turns around while flying backwards towards the ship. "What was that Sanji?! I couldn't-"

She pauses when she feels her nose start to tickle from the salty air. She tries to hold back from sneezing, but the feeling keeps building up in her nose. "A-ah- ACHOO!"

She gets sent flying backwards towards the sails on the ship from the force of the sneeze. She crashes through the cloth of their largest sail and leaves a giant hole in it. She loses her focus on her flying from the sneeze and starts falling. She quickly catches herself with another gust of wind and lands in front of the girls.

Everyone looks up to see another gust of wind blow through the hole in the sail, only to make the hole grow until the sail splits in half.

Rose quietly gulps at the damage before she looks around to see the pirates have their swords ready for her. "Ok, I officially just pulled off the worst entrance ever…"

"Don't worry about that now Rose! Eyelashes is about to be eaten!" Vivi says as she struggles in the ropes.

Rose turns around and looks at the girls curiously. "Really? I'm surprised they don't want to sell him."

A large, chubby, man with dark hair under an open pink umbrella hat laughs at the statement as he walks up to the girls with a large smirk. "We, the Barbar Sand Pirates have a saying: 'Aside from friends, anything in the desert can be eaten.'"

Rose blinks at the saying before she strokes her chin in thought. "You know, that's a good point. You gotta eat to survive right?"

The large man nods in agreement. "Exactly! If it's a choice between food and money, food always wins."

Rose nods before she looks at the camel curiously. "Does a camel taste good though?"

"Of course he does when you cook him right! We can let you try if you want."

Rose tilts her head in thought at the offer while Nami looks at her in shock. "Are you seriously considering it?! Who's side are you on?!"

Nami tries to kick her, but the wind girl quickly dodges. "You can't blame me for being curious! I never ate a camel before!"

Eyelashes can only tear up at the conversation while the captain only laughs. "Hahaha, this pipsqueak's funny!"

Rose giggles at the compliment. "You're pretty funny too, my name's Rose. I'm sorry about your sail. I was just trying to get my friends back but it backfired."

"Oh, so they're your friends. We can't eat the camel then." The captain looks over Nami and Vivi then unties them along with the camel.

The rest of the Straw Hats make it up to the ship to see what's going on and lower their guard.

"What the hell?" Zoro asks as he watches the pirates free his friends.

Once Nami's free, she groans as she walks up to her crewmates. "Don't ask me what happened. One minute they wanted to eat Eyelashes and now they're friendly."

The sand pirate captain chuckles as he takes a seat and turns to the crew. "My name's Barbarossa, I'm the captain of the Barbar Sand Pirates. Sorry for the rough treatment of your friends. We're all just really hungry…"

One of his crewmates steps up, while he looks at the sail. "We shouldn't apologize captain! What about our main sail?! The hole's too big to patch up. We need a replacement or we can't move!"

The other sand pirates look at each other with complete worry.

"Yea, what are we gonna do?!"

"We can't stay here! Should we leave?!"

The straw hats look around at their dramatics when Barbarossa speaks up. "Quit your yammering. We sand pirates live in our ships and we'll die in our ships! Abandoning our ship is unthinkable!"

The crew starts smiling and quickly agrees.

"Yea, that's right!"

"We're the pride of the Barbarossa Pirates after all!"

Usopp sweat drops at the change in attitude without saying a word. _*What is this?*_

Vivi looks around in shock then turns to the captain. "Wait a minute, what are you saying?! You shouldn't give up."

Barbarossa chuckles at her concern. "Who said we were giving up? We can still get it fixed. There should be enough cloth at the Meriyasu Oasis."

Rose looks out at the desert then steps up. "Which way is it? I'll go get it."

Barbarossa looks out at the desert while contemplating the offer. "I appreciate it, but the sand has changed a lot lately. It's too dangerous for outsiders to journey there alone."

"No way, I broke it so I gotta fix it!" She turns to the others with a small grin. "If that's fine with you guys. I know we're pressed for time."

Vivi shakes her head with a smile. "It's ok, they spared us so it's the least we can do."

The others nod while Barbarossa gives the freckled girl a large smile. "Alright then, if that's how you feel I won't stop you. Boys, get two sand sleds ready!"

The others nod as they bring out two of their sand sleds and lower them down while Rose, Barbarossa, and the Straw Hats get off the ship.

"Those looks more like small sail boats than sleds." Nami says as she takes a closer look at the tiny sail boats.

"They may look different than your usual sled, but they can get you sailing through the sand faster than this ship can. You should be able to carry the cloth in them." Barbarossa says while a young man gets off the ship.

"Zaba and Rasa will be guiding you to the oasis." Barbarossa says while he point to the young man named Zaba who waves at them, but Rasa isn't anywhere to be found.

"Where's Rasa?" Nami asks.

Zaba shrugs as he gets on his sled. "She'll be on her way. It's better if she comes along. She's the best sand sled rider we have."

Barbarossa nods in agreement before he turns to the wind girl. "These sleds hold two people so you can take someone else with you."

Rose grins at the offer as she gets on the boat. "I'll be fine on my own."

Nami shakes her head as she goes next to her. "You shouldn't go in alone. Besides, you don't need the sled, you can fly."

Chopper nods in agreement as he steps up. "Yea, you never rode on a sand sled right? Maybe flying would be better for you."

She shakes her head with a small smile. "I never did ride one of these before, but that's what makes it more exciting. Beside, you guys saw me crash into the sail. I'm still too new to my flying to rely on it."

"You still shouldn't go by yourself. Maybe I should come along." Sanji says but Rose politely declines the offer when she looks at Vivi to see her approaching the sled.

The princess touches the sled and looks inside when a knife is thrown her way. She quickly ducks to dodge the knife before it hits the ship, then she and the others look to see a young woman with her small pink umbrella pinned in her dark blue hair jumping off the ship.

Barbarossa laughs at his crewmate's antics. "That was a good throw Rasa, but no throwing them at friends"

Rasa ignores the command as she lands on her feet and frowns at Vivi. "The others seem to be outsiders, but you're from here aren't you?"

Vivi nods at the accusation. "Yes I am."

"Then you must have some experience with a sand sled. You should go along with your friend."

Sanji narrows his eyes at her. "What are you saying?! Vivi can't do anything that dangerous!"

"Yea, that's crazy!" Nami says but Vivi raises a hand up to stop them.

"Wait guys, she's right. I'll come with you on your journey Rasa."

The sand pirate smirks at the declaration as she joins Zaba on his sled.

Rose quietly sighs before she lets Vivi climb aboard. "Sorry about this Vivi."

"Oh don't worry about it; you helped us get out of the situation after all. Let's work together here. Would it be alright if I drive?"

Rose nods as she pulls the mast up then hands the rope to Vivi. She takes a step back while Vivi gets herself acquainted with the sled's rigging. "Now let's see. I believe it goes like this and..."

She manages to get the sail to catch a tailwind and gets the sled sailing at his speed.

Rasa widens her eyes at the head start before she steers the sled and sails after them to leave Barbarossa and the Straw Hats alone.

Nami watches them sail off before she looks around and realizes that a pair of brothers are missing. "Hey, what happened to Luffy and Ace?"

"Ace and Luffy wandered off somewhere." Usopp says casually.

Nami widens her eyes at this before she runs a hand through her hair. "Are you serious? Looks like those two are brothers after all."

Barbarosssa raises an eyebrow at this. "You guys lost some friends?"

Chopper nods. "Yea, our captain and his brother. We're not sure where they went."

Barbarossa nods at this before he looks at his ship. "Well, since you guys are being nice enough to help us out we can give you a ride towards a nearby village. Your captain might be over there."

Sanji nods with a small smile before he puffs a smoke from his cigarette. "That'll be great, thank you."

Barbarossa smiles back before he looks at the camel. "Think nothing of it. So, what do you guys want to do while we wait? We can always eat the camel."

Eyelashes tenses up at the offer while the sand pirates start cheering.

Usopp, Sanji and Zoro raise their hands up in agreement. "We're ok with that."

Barbarossa laughs at the agreement. "Sorry, but I was just kidding."

Everyone, but Nami and Eyelashes, groan in disappointment before they relax.

"That didn't sound like a joke to me…" Nami says as she goes back to the deck to make sure no one tries to eat the camel and looks out to the path that her friends took. _*Good luck guys.*_

* * *

Rose can only laugh in excitement as she looks around while the sled is sailing through the desert. "Hahaha, this is amazing!"

She looks at Vivi and watches what she's doing with the ropes in both of her hands closely. "So how does it work with the ropes?"

"I'll show you. In order to go right you would pull the right rope like so." Vivi pulls the rope in her right hand to get the sled to shift to the right then gives it some slack to get them back in the same direction. "Then with the left rope you would need to adjust the mast just right to that you can shift it left."

Rose keep observing the princess' movements with interest as she keeps piloting the sled with ease. "Still, you seem to have a pretty good handle on it."

"I've practiced with a sand sled when I was little. It's not something easily mastered though."

Rose grins at the comment as she scans the large desert that they're sailing through. "It's still amazing to experience something like this. It's almost like sailing in the water."

Vivi nods with a soft smile as she takes in her surroundings. "Yea, it really is. So, what do you think of Alabasta so far?"

"It's pretty awesome. I think I made the right choice on making this place my new home."

"What will you do after everything's peaceful?"

Rose tenses up at the question before she gives her a small smile. "I didn't think that far ahead yet, but I'll figure something out. I'll probably go wherever the wind takes me."

Vivi widens her eyes at the last sentence before she frowns at her. "Was that supposed to be a pun?"

"Maybe." Rose giggles at her own joke, with the princess smiling at her, when Rasa's sled catches up to them. Rasa's sled goes next to theirs, and splashes sand onto the girls, before Rasa bumps their sled into the ditch on their left.

Vivi yells from the hit as she loses control of the sled as it begins to fall into the sand.

Rose coughs up some sand, and gets up as the sand from the edge of the ditch keeps pulling them into the hole. "What the hell?!"

Zaba bites his lip as he watches them fall then turns to Rasa. "What was that for Rasa?! That was too far!"

Rasa scoffs at the complaint as she keeps driving. "If luck's on Vivi's side then she'll stay alive."

Zaba widens his eyes at the comment. "Wait, you know one of the girls?"

Rasa's grip on the ropes tightens as she keeps going. "As if I'd ever forget..." She keeps sailing the sled away from the hole and leaving the girls in the dust.

Vivi keeps trying to take back control of the sled but nothing is happening. "It's not working!"

Rose looks up at the sail and takes a step back. "Vivi, whatever you do hold onto that rope for dear life! When I use my wind I need you to steer the sled up the hill!"

Vivi nods as she holds onto the rope as tight as she can while Rose uses her wind to give the sled a strong tailwind to get them gliding on the sand. Vivi widens her eyes at the sudden pull at the ropes from the sudden gust before she wraps the rope around her hands, and takes back control of the sled.

"It's working Rose! Keep it up!" Vivi says as she steers the sled up the edge of the ditch.

Rose keeps her focus on the strength of her wind to make it strong enough to get the sailing uphill as fast as it can without shredding a hole in the cloth. _*Come on, just a little more!*_

The sled keeps going when it reaches the edge of the ditch and shoots up into the air. Rose laughs in excitement as she changes her wind to make it no longer pushing the sail, but now keeping the vessel floating in the air.

Rasa and Kaba look back in shock to see the sled flying after them.

"What the hell?! They made it?!" Rasa asks when her sled starts to stumble to the right from the lack of control, so she forces herself to get back to work on controlling the tiny ship.

Vivi looks around with amazement in her eyes at the new view of the desert below them. "That was great Rose!"

"Thanks." She keeps the sled floating until they're at a safe distance from the ditch then sets it down. Once they're sailing on the sand again, Rose takes a seat while she catches her breath.

Vivi turns around in shock to see the wind girl completely exhausted as she stays down and breathes raggedly. "Are you alright?!"

Rose quickly nods with a smile as she gives her a thumbs up. "I'm good, just used my wind a lot today. I made up my mind on something though. After everything's peaceful, I'm gonna save up to get myself one of these sleds because that was awesome!"

Vivi blinks at her friend's attitude before she giggles, turns her attention back to the sled, and follows the two sand pirates for the rest of their trip to the oasis.

* * *

The two sand sleds have no more issues on their journey through the desert as they reach a small town that's half buried in the sand.

When Vivi and Rasa stop their sleds, Rose gets out while she glares at the female sand pirate. "What the hell was that about?!"

Rasa scoffs at the confrontation while she drops the ropes and walks off the sled. "Just a little test."

Rose clenches her fists in rage as she starts walking towards her with hot air starting to blow out of her. "A test?! You could've gotten Vivi hurt with that stunt back there!"

Vivi quickly runs in front of her to stop her from doing anything rash. "Take it easy, we both made it out alright. We shouldn't be fighting."

The wind girl takes a deep breath to calm herself down, then sighs as the air stops blowing out of her. "Fine…"

Kaba gets off the sled and runs into the town. "I'll get the cloth! You guys just stay here!"

The girls just sweat drop at the man's quick retreat.

 _*Poor guy, we must've scared him…*_ Rose rubs the back of her head sheepishly then looks at the barren town with the princess.

"It's just like Erumalu…" Vivi says as she stares at the remains of the city sadly. "This city used to flourish as well, but it didn't have a chance either…"

Rose quietly sighs at the statement. "Yea… Did you ever come here Vivi?"

"Once when I was little. The people here gave me a small sand sled as a memento. That was a very long time ago though. It was when I was travelling the country with my father…"

"And I've been waiting all this time…" Rose and Vivi freeze at Rasa's voice and turn to see the sand pirate looking out at the desert with a sad look in her eyes.

Rasa doesn't take her eyes off the desert as she continues speaking. "Back then, the king told us 'if anything should happen to this oasis I will come rushing to help. The kingdom won't ignore any voice no matter how small.'"

Vivi widens her eyes at the speech when she remembers her visit to the oasis as a child. She quickly recalls a young girl with dark blue hair like Rasa's who gave her flowers upon her arrival to her town. "You were that girl back then…"

The pirate slowly nods but she doesn't look at them. "Eventually, this oasis was buried in the sand and was abandoned. Everybody in this town left, but I stayed behind and waited for you… I believed in you… But, the king never came and neither did you."

Guilt begins to well up in the princess as she tries to explain herself. "But, similar incidents have been happening all over the country. The king was busy everyday trying to fight it."

"I don't want to hear your excuses!" Rasa furiously turns to her and looks her princess in the eye. "For years, I waited all alone in the middle of this desert!"

Her anger begins to fade away and leaves only loneliness as she remembers the years she spent waiting for help. "Finally, I couldn't even tell the difference between dawn and dusk. By the time Barbarossa took me in, I couldn't feel anything. Not the scorching heat or the freezing cold after sunset. I was amazed that I was still alive. But, the king's words continued to play inside my head. Honestly, what was I waiting for? Why did I stay here?"

Tears begin to well up in Vivi's dark eyes as she slowly approaches Rasa. "I'm sorry… I'm so sorry I made you wait…"

Rose looks at the sand pirate sadly then she looks down at her necklace, but doesn't say a word as a cold breeze blows out of her for a few seconds. _*Waiting in one place for some sort of hope huh? No place is completely different from that world after all…*_

Vivi and Rasa snap out of their sadness after they feel the cold breeze blowing past them. Rasa looks at the wind girl curiously for a moment but shrugs it off before she turns to Vivi. "Anyway, that's all I had to say. I'm done waiting now."

Vivi slowly nods with a small frown. "I truly am sorry. You might not believe me, but I know what's causing this country's problems. I'm going to do everything in my power to fix everything."

Rasa can only scoff at her promise as she starts walking back to her sled. "Actions speak louder than words. I won't believe it until I see it."

"Don't worry; I'll make sure you see it." Vivi says, which makes Rasa pause for a moment before she gets back to her sled.

Rose quietly sighs before she pats Vivi on the shoulder. "As long as you keep your promise it'll be fine. Like she said, actions speak louder…"

Vivi slowly nods as she looks back at the abandoned town. "Right…"

Before anything else can be said, Zaba comes back with a large folded cloth strapped to his back. "I have the new sail ready. Let's head back."

The girls quickly agree as everyone got back on the sleds and began to sail back to Barbarossa's ship to fix the sail just before the sun had begun to set.

* * *

As Luffy and Ace ride on the gecko under the evening sky, Luffy groans from the boredom. "Haven't we found the others yet?"

Ace quietly sighs in annoyance at the constant question then looks up at the sky. "No Lu. Hey, wanna set up camp for the night? I'm sure they've set up camp too."

"Yea, sounds good." He and Ace get off the gecko before Ace turns to the lizard.

"Don't run away tonight and we'll give you some dinner too."

The gecko quickly nods as Luffy gets some sticks ready for a campfire. Ace quickly lights up the sticks then grabs some meat from his bag, and cooks it for them before the three of them dig in.

Luffy and the gecko happily enjoy their dinner with only the sounds of loud chewing coming out of them.

Ace quietly eats while he sneaks a glance at his brother, who's oblivious to what he's planning. _*Now's a better time than any for the final-*_ He falls asleep, so Luffy laughs at the sudden snooze.

The rubber man sees that Ace didn't finish his dinner yet, so he tries to grab it but a hand quickly snatches his own.

"Nice try Lu." Ace finishes his meal before Luffy can touch it.

Luffy can only pout at his brother's unwillingness to share as he grabs another piece of meat. "Stingy…"

Ace snickers at his childishness, as he watches him eat, then gets his next part of his plan to make him jealous into action. "Hey Lu, what do you think of the girls you hang out with?"

Luffy quickly finishes his meat then tilts his head in confusion. "What do I think of them?"

"Yea, I mean they're all really interesting."

Luffy knits his eyebrows in thought before he shrugs it off and starts talking about them. "Well, Nami's really helpful and smart but she can be scary when she's mad. Vivi's nice and her duck's really cool."

Ace chuckles at his description of his friends. "And Rose?"

Luffy freezes at the question before he smiles at him. "She's like a mystery girl!"

Ace quirks an eyebrow at the statement. "A mystery girl?"

Luffy quickly nods as he explains himself. "Yea, she's full of surprises. Even though she can be really weird sometimes we get along great, her power's cool, and she's really fun too." He pauses when he feels like he said something like this before. _*"We worked together great back at the island, your power's cool and you're really fun too! If you don't fit in our crew then none of us do either!"*_

Ace raises an eyebrow when he sees his brother rubbing his head. "Hey, are you ok?"

Luffy nods with a smile as he takes his hand off his head. "Yea, just a small headache."

Ace nods then chuckles at Luffy's thoughts about the wind girl. "You seem pretty close to Rose."

"Of course, we're friends after all."

"But not crewmates."

Luffy widens his eyes at the comment and loses his smile. "What?"

Ace keeps a smirk on his face as he rests his head on the palm of his hand. "I heard that you didn't recruit her, so I was thinking of asking her to come with me. After all, her wind and information might be what I need to take down Blackbeard. Then who knows, maybe I can get Pops to make an exception and take her in as a pirate instead of a nurse-"

"HELL NO!"

Ace froze at Luffy's shouting to see that he managed to completely piss him off. He can only remain silent while Luffy continues speaking. "You can't take Rose with you!"

Ace blinks at his brother's rage before putting his smirk back on. "Oh really? And why not?"

"Because she already joined my crew!"

TO BE CONTINUED


	16. Chapter 16

The declaration that Luffy made about Rose's recruitment was only met with the sound of the campfire crackling for a few seconds until Ace spoke up. "Luffy, when exactly did you recruit her?"

"Just after we left Drum Island and had a party for Chopper joining."

Ace nods at this while keeping an amused grin on his face. "Were you drunk when you recruited her?"

"Yea, why?"

He can't take it anymore and bursts out laughing.

Luffy starts getting irritated at the sudden laughter and glares at him. "I'm being serious! Quit laughing!"

Ace quickly recovers while he waves his hand dismissively. "Sorry, sorry, but tell me did you ever talk to Rose about this?"

"No, I forgot for a bit."

Ace immediately loses his smile at Luffy's explanation. "You really did forget?"

He nods as if nothing's wrong. "Yea, I forgot for a while, but now I remember."

"If you forgot, then why didn't you ask her again on the way here?"

"She was avoiding me because we had a fight when I was drunk. She never told me what we fought about though."

Ace pauses at the story before he plants a hand on his face. "You idiot…"

Luffy tilts his head at his brother's frustration. "What's the matter?"

"What you guys fought about was her joining the crew…"

Luffy widens his eyes at the answer. "Wait, what?!"

He slowly nods as he takes his hand away from his face. "She knew that you forgot and played it off like it didn't happen. She probably thinks that you only recruited her because you were drunk."

Luffy widens his eyes at this before he scowls at him. "Then I'll recruit her again! That means you can't take her with you!"

Ace blinks at the declaration before he smiles and pats his brother on the shoulder. "Relax; I never wanted to take her with me."

Luffy immediately calms down at his brother's reassurance then he tilts his head in confusion. "Really? Then why did you say that you wanted to?"

Ace chuckles at how his plan played out. "I wanted to make sure that you recruited her, but I didn't expect you to get so annoyed."

Luffy's eyes shot out as he remembers the 'mystery feeling' he's been having all day. "You noticed too?! I've been feeling like this for half the day, and it keeps coming back! I don't know how to get rid of it!"

Ace widens his eyes at Luffy's blunt statement before a small smirk forms on his face. "Oh really? Tell me, when did you first get annoyed?"

"When I watched you talking to Rose and hugging her."

Ace nods at this and keeps going. "Did you feel them again when I was around her?"

Luffy widens his eyes as he looks back to all the times he got annoyed today and realizes that it was true. "Yea, exactly! What's going on here?!"

Ace laughs at his brother's confusion before he smirks. "You my little brother, are jealous."

Luffy raises an eyebrow at the name of his mystery emotion. "I'm jealous? I don't like it, how do I get rid of it?!"

Ace does the best he can to hold back from laughing before he gives Luffy some advice. "Here's what you gotta do: First, you gotta wrap your arms around her. Then, you have to tell her exactly what you're feeling."

Luffy begins to tilt his head as he processes the easy instructions. "Really? That's it?"

"Yup, just be persistent and she'll join your crew."

Luffy's smile quickly grows back before he nods. "Great, thanks Ace!"

Ace nods before he ruffles his brother's hair. "It's what big brothers are for. Go get some sleep now. We got a big day tomorrow."

"Ok, good night." Luffy goes next to the large gecko, that's been asleep this whole time, and uses him as a pillow before he falls asleep.

Ace chuckles at how everything played out before he lies down on his back with his hands behind his head. He looks up at the night sky with a small smile as his thoughts drift towards his second brother. _*Have you seen what's been happening here Sabo? I can't believe I actually gave our little brother girl advice. You might've liked this girl; she can be as crazy as Luffy. Too bad we couldn't tease Luffy about this together…*_

He quietly sighs at the time he could've spent with his lost brother before he goes to join Luffy in his sleep. _*It's fine Sabo; I'll make sure Luffy gets enough teasing for the both of us if they get together. For now, we'll have to enjoy the show. Tomorrow that girl's going to get a run for her money that's for sure.*_

* * *

"Achoo!" Rose sneezes on the deck of Barbarossa's ship and sends herself flying off the moving ship. She quickly catches herself with her wind before she can damage the sails again. She sighs in relief before she looks down at where Nami and Vivi are while the rest of the boys are inside sleeping. _*Damn, these flying sneezes are getting on my nerves.*_

"You ok Rose?" Nami asks as she and Vivi watch her float back down to the deck.

Rose nods then looks up at the newly replaced sail that she and the others brought back. "Yea, I'm ok. I didn't damage anything this time."

Vivi walks up to Rose and feels her forehead. "You've been sneezing a lot today. You're not getting sick are you?"

Rose calmly takes her friend's hand off her forehead and gives her a reassuring smile. "Relax, I'm not sick. Someone's probably either thinking or talking about me."

Nami quirks an eyebrow at the excuse. "What now?"

"I read in a book that sometimes when you sneeze it means that someone's either talking or thinking about you."

Nami and Vivi both exchange odd looks to one another until Rose chuckles. "Relax, it's just something I heard. It's probably the sandy air or something."

The freckled girl looks around and sees the rope piled up by the mast. "Still, I don't want my sneezing to break any more of this crew's stuff. Maybe it's best if I camp out here tonight."

The navigator and princess both look at Rose in utter shock as she grabs the long rope. The brunette ties one end of the rope around her waist, but before she can tie the other end to the mast Vivi grabs the rope. "What are you doing?!"

Rose takes the rope back from her friend and ties the other end to the mast to give her about a meter of space to move around. "Making sure that I don't sneeze off the ship in my sleep." _*As long as I don't phase through the rope, it should work.*_

Nami widens her eyes at the explanation. "You can't be serious! You don't need to sleep out here!"

Rose casually shrugs off her worries. "Relax, I'm just doing it so I won't sneeze through a wall in my sleep." Rose looks at the sky, that's more relaxing compared to the New York sky she had to sleep under back home, before smiling at the girls. "Besides, once you get the hang of it, sleeping outside's pretty nice."

Vivi blinks at how she acts like she's used to sleeping outside, before she sadly stares at the rope. "Still, it can't be comfortable with the rope. It's pretty lonely out here too."

Rose shrugs as she takes off her backpack and sits down with her back to the mast. "It's not that bad. I didn't make the rope too tight and I have those to keep me company." She points to the millions of stars above them with a calm smile to assure them that she's fine.

Nami looks up at the stars and sighs in defeat. "Alright, I guess we have no choice."

Rose's smile widens at the agreement, but it quickly fades when she sees the girls sitting next to her on both sides. The freckled girl turns her head from one side to the other to see that they're both getting comfortable. "You guys don't need to stay out here. I'm fine on my own."

Vivi shakes her head as she relaxes her back on the mast. "It's alright, I don't want to leave you out here."

Nami nods in agreement. "Me neither, and like you said, it's pretty fun out here."

Rose blinks at their persistence before she gives them a small grin. "Ok." She digs into her bag and takes her sheet out for the three of them to share.

Vivi and Nami happily wrap themselves in their share of the blanket while Rose stays warm in the middle of them.

Once Vivi's situated, she turns to Rose. "Thanks for the sheet. Are you ok with the rope?"

Rose nods as she makes sure that the knot holding the rope around her waist doesn't bother her. "I'm good, like I said it's not too tight."

Nami snickers at the comment. "Too bad Luffy's not here. His arms are probably a lot more comfortable than that rope."

Rose widens her eyes at the thought as an image of her sleeping in the captain's arms shows up in her mind. She quickly shakes her head from the embarrassing thought with a small blush decorating her freckles. "Not happening! My days of him reeling me down are over!"

Nami can only laugh at the quick denial before Rose tiredly sighs. "Whatever, I already said that it's not like that between us."

Nami keeps a smirk on her face as she remembers how her captain's been acting. "Oh really? Then how do you explain today?"

Rose widens her eyes at the question. "You noticed it too?!"

Vivi looks from Nami to Rose in confusion. "What's been going on today?"

Rose turns to her to explain what's been happening. "Luffy's been in a bad mood today. What does that have to do with this Nami?"

"Haven't you noticed that he's only been like that around you and Ace? Like when Ace was standing with you while the rest of us were playing rock, paper, scissors."

Rose widens her eyes at the explanation as she thinks back on how Luffy's been upset around her and Ace. "You mean Luffy's jealous?"

Nami quickly nods while her two friends are frozen with shock.

Rose's the first to snap out of it before she bursts out laughing. "Hahaha, oh my god, that joke was amazing! I didn't know you can make jokes like that Nami! Hahaha!"

Nami quickly whacks her on the head, but her fist goes through her. "I can make jokes, but that wasn't one of them!"

Rose catches her breath and gives her a small smile. "Sorry, but there's no way Luffy's jealous."

Vivi tilts her head at the freckled girl's blunt denial. "How can you be so sure?"

"If he was jealous from me hanging out with Ace, then wouldn't he be jealous of Sanji? Unlike Ace, Sanji actually flirts with me and Luffy doesn't act strange at all."

Nami pauses when she realizes that Rose is right. She thinks deeply about what could have been different and comes up with a theory. "Well, you don't really react to Sanji's flirting, so maybe he didn't see a problem with it. Did something happen with you and Ace today?"

Rose tenses up when she remembers Ace hugging her earlier today with Luffy watching them. _*Wait a minute, if Luffy saw me react to Ace's hug then could he really be-?! What the hell am I thinking?! That's impossible!*_

She quickly shakes her head at the assumption. "Luffy's not jealous over a girl! He was probably upset about carrying your stuff along with dealing with the heat!"

Vivi and Nami look at the freckled girl in confusion before she quickly turns the topic around. "Anyway, what about you two?"

Nami quirks an eyebrow at the change of subject. "What do you mean?"

"Do either of you have any one that you're interested in?"

Nami laughs at the question. "No way. Sure they're interesting, but I'm not into them that way. And you Vivi?"

Vivi widens her eyes at the spotlight drawn on her before she shakes her head. "We're all good friends, but I don't have those kinds of feelings for them."

Rose quietly sighs at the princess' answer. _*I kind of saw that coming. Wait, what about Kohza?*_ A smirk begins to grow on the brunette's face as she gently nudges Vivi by the shoulder. "Doesn't have to be someone in the crew. What about any Alabasta boys?"

Vivi freezes at the question when the face of her childhood friend appears in her mind. She looks away from her friends with a small blush on her face. "Well…"

Nami and Rose widen their eyes at the blush as she turns away from them. Vivi quickly lays down with her back to the others and pulls the sheet over her head. "There's nothing like that! I'm going to bed!"

Rose and Nami drop their jaws at the retreat, but don't say a word when they realize that she won't come out.

Nami smirks at the new challenge that appeared as she high fives Rose for the question. "Nice one."

Rose nods in excitement of the possible pairing as she settles in her makeshift bed. "I learned from the best. Let's get some sleep too."

Nami nods then looks at how all three of them can easily fit under Rose's sheet. She looks down at the large sheet for a moment then turns to Rose curiously. "Not that I don't appreciate how big this sheet is, but why did you get one so large?"

"I'll tell you later."

The redhead widens her eyes at the dodged question, but she lets it go before following the princess into a deep sleep.

Rose takes a look at both of them to make sure that she's the only one awake, then sighs in relief as she looks up at the stars, and drifts into her thoughts. _*Glad I turned that conversation around. I can't imagine how they'd react if I told them Luffy saw Ace making me blush from a hug... Would that really be all that it takes to make Luffy jealous?!*_

She shakes her head to get the idea of Luffy being jealous out of her head. _*That's crazy! There's no way Luffy would be like that about me of all people! We're just friends, we're not even crewmates! He barely knows me, and does he even have a type?!*_

She rakes her hands through her hair in frustration of the confusing situation she's in. _*Shit, I gotta calm down and make this straight. If Luffy was actually jealous it wouldn't be about love. If anything, he's probably mad that I've been keeping Ace from hanging out with him thanks to the training. That makes a lot more sense than him being jealous over me. Wait, why am I so worried? It's not like I have feelings for Luffy… Right?*_

She quickly shakes her head to stop herself from getting too deep into her thoughts. She turns around to make her backpack into a makeshift pillow then lays her head on it. _*Enough, if I keep over thinking things I'll go nuts. I'm not joining his crew anyway so there's nothing to look into.*_

She sighs again for what feels like the fifth time tonight before following her friends into a quiet slumber.

* * *

 _On January 10th, the wall clock in Rose's foster home revealed it to be 10:30 at night when the sixteen year old brunette made it inside to warm up. Rose doesn't bother to take her jacket, gloves, and hat off as she walks through the hall, with her backpack and shopping bag holding her birthday presents in hand. She stops just before she passes the doorway to the living room, and looks inside to see all three of her foster family watching TV._

 _She takes this opportunity to rush to her room and place the backpack down on the bed. She digs into her shopping bag and takes out a small, used, telescope and a grey lock box out with a smile. She chuckles at her birthday presents as she sets up the combination for the box. *That pizza job has really been making things better for me. I can actually splurge on some decent gifts now.*_

 _She takes the leftover earnings from today's shift out of the backpack and puts it in the lockbox, then stores both gifts under the bed. She goes into her backpack, takes out the One Piece manga volume 22 that she borrowed from Timothy, and places the book on the dresser for later. She manages to stuff the empty shopping bag into her backpack and seal it when her door slams open._

 _"I knew something smelled gross. When did you get here?" Rick asks as he barges into her small bedroom while his daughters smirk from the doorway._

 _Rose immediately loses her smile at her intruder as she takes her jacket off. "I just got back." She walks past him to put her jacket away when her foster father grabs her by the arm._

 _"You've been coming home late a lot and you're acting even weirder than usual. What are you up to now?"_

 _Rose clenches her teeth at the tightness in his grip, but she doesn't complain about the pain as she answers him. "Right now, I'm trying to put my jacket away."_

 _Rose pries her arm off and goes to the closet to put her jacket away while she keeps her gloves and hat up. *No way in hell am I telling them about the pizza job. They make fun of me enough for street performing.*_

 _He scowls at the dodged answer then grabs her and slaps her across the face. "Don't be a wiseass you little bitch. What have you been getting yourself into?"_

 _Rose ignores the pain in her cheek as she narrows her purple eyes at him. "Why the sudden need to act like you care?"_

 _"I don't want to deal with cops dragging you back here for being a stupid brat."_

 _Rose scoffs at his rotten remark as she pulls away from him. "Don't worry, I wouldn't dream of ruining your perfect reputation as a security guard."_

 _Rick punches her in the gut hard enough for her to slump over. "I already told you not to be a wiseass!"_

 _Rose groans at the aching pain in her stomach as she holds it with one arm and grabs the wall with the other to pull herself up._

 _Marie chuckles at the hunched over girl then tries to figure out what could be so important for her to hide it. "It must be some secret for her to want to keep it locked up. Maybe a boyfriend?"_

 _Laura laughs at her twin's assumption. "Now that's something to see. What kind of guy would be into her? He'd have to be crazier than she is to fall for her."_

 _Rose clenches her fists at the insults as she walks up to the girls while she gives them a glare that makes both blondes jump back in fear. "Stay out of this!"_

 _Marie regains her composure and goes to slap her but she dodges and punches her in the face. Laura retaliates for her sister by punching her in the face, but she steps back to dodge. Before Rose can punch back, Rick goes up from behind and twists her arm behind her back. Rose gives him a back kick to the gut to get him to let go, but he kept a grip on her arm as he steps back. He groans at the strong kick, but he stays persistent as he slams the girl's side to the wall. Rose keeps struggling by back kicking him and punching him in the face with her free arm. He doesn't budge on the kick, but he takes the punch to grab her free arm then starts dragging her out of the room._

 _As Rose is being half dragged out of the room Marie walks up to her and slaps her across the face. "Never mind crazy, your boyfriend would have to be blind so he wouldn't run from your ugly glare."_

 _Rose growls in frustration as she struggles to break free, but her foster father keeps an iron grip on her arms as he drags her through the hallway._

 _Rick tightens his grip around her to keep her from squirming out as they head towards the door. "Since you like staying out so much, maybe you should spend the rest of your birthday out there. Marie, open the door."_

 _"With pleasure daddy." Marie quickly runs ahead to open the door for her father._

 _Rick throws the brunette girl out the door and watches her fall on her hands and knees. Rose quickly turns around to charge them when Laura rushes to the doorway, and throws Rose's One Piece manga at her head._

 _"Happy birthday Rosie." Laura's final remark was the last thing Rose heard before Rick slammed the door in her face._

 _Rose rubs her aching head to try to sooth it then quickly grabs the book to see that it wasn't damaged. She stares at the door to her foster home sadly, but doesn't try to open it for she knows that they already locked her out for the night. *Leave it to those three to ruin today... At least they left me some reading material this time.*_

 _She gets up and goes up to the top floor of the apartment building where the doorways to the rooftop and the supply closet are held. She goes into the supply closet and into the far corner of the room where a shelf full of cleaning supplies are kept. She reaches into the back of the shelf to grab the sleeping bag she keeps hidden there every winter._

 _She spreads the bag out onto the floor of the closet, that has just enough room for her to lay down, then wraps herself in the bag. She snuggles deep into the bag as she contemplates how her birthday wound up like this. "Rick never cared about when I came back before. Is he just finding new excuses for a fight now? All the more reason to keep those three from knowing about the pizza job…"_

 _She sighs in frustration of how her night turned out when Laura's comment about if she had a boyfriend pops up in her head. *"The guy would have to be crazier than she is to fall for her."*_

 _She quietly sighs at the remark as she stares at the dark ceiling sadly. *Like I didn't know that already Laura... At least I know better than to drag someone that deep into my life. Who needs love when I got anime worlds to explore anyway?*_

 _She chuckles at her final thought when she grabs the manga, and reads what the One Piece world has to offer for the rest of the night._

* * *

The sun begins to rise for the next morning when Rose was the first to wake up with a small frown. She quietly sighs from the bad memory she experienced in her dream as she sits up. _*Stupid dreams, like I don't have enough to deal with… At least they're out of my life now...*_

She looks down at the rope tied around her stomach and quickly unties herself. She quietly gets out of the huddle and stretches her limbs from sleeping on the wooden deck. Nami and Vivi stir from the lack of space in between them and shuffles to make up for the lost warmth at the cost of the sheet shifting off them.

Rose looks down at the two friends, who wouldn't let her sleep out here alone, and softly grins at them. _*Thanks for keeping me company.*_

She makes sure that they're tucked into the sheet when Barbarossa walks outside. The pirate captain looks at the freckled girl in confusion. "Huh? What'd you sleep out here for? We have plenty of room."

Rose grins at him while she softly speaks. "I appreciate it, but I didn't want to risk breaking your stuff with my sneezing again."

Her grin begins to grow as she looks around at the vast surroundings. "Besides, why sleep indoors when I can have both my friends, the desert, and the night sky as my sleeping companions?"

Barbarossa widens his eyes at the brilliant point and laughs boisterously. "Hahaha, you're right, they make wonderful companions! I like your attitude kid! You'd make a great sand pirate!"

Rose giggles at the compliment before she starts lifting herself into the air. "Thank you, but I'll stick to being an astronomer. I'm gonna go practice my flying, I'll let you know if I see anything."

Barbarossa nods as he watches her fly high above the ship then gets to work on steering the ship towards the village.

Everyone else begins to wake up as the hours roll by and the crew continues to travel through the desert. Nami and Vivi wake up to the noise to see everybody up and about.

"What are you guys doing?" The girls turn to see Chopper walking in front of him with curiosity in his eyes.

Vivi gets up and stretches herself. "We slept out here last night. Any news about us reaching the village?"

"Not yet."

Nami gets up and places the sheet in Rose's bag then looks around up to see that Rose is flying around just above the crow's nest. "HEY ROSE, DID YOU SPOT THE GUYS THERE?!"

Rose jolts at her name being called then looks down at Chopper and the girls. She flies down to them and shakes her head. "Sorry, I couldn't see them."

The ship suddenly stops, so everyone who isn't a sand pirate looks around to see that the pirates are dropping anchor.

"Ido village is a few miles ahead." Everyone who isn't a sand pirate looks at the front of the ship to see Barbarossa pointing ahead. "Your friends might have already made it to that town."

Usopp looks ahead at the village that's small from where they're standing then turns to the captain. "Wait, you're not coming with us?"

"Nope, you see this realm belongs to my people. We live and die out here in the desert and we'll continue to do so."

Vivi nods as she looks around then pauses when she sees Rasa up on the rope ladder frowning down at her. She remains silent under the sand pirate's glare as she looks ahead.

"What are you guys going to do now?" Sanji asks while Barbarossa just smiles at the guests who have helped him.

"Nothing much, we'll keep living on this ocean of sand and live our lives freely."

 _*Wow, they're like us in a way.*_ Nami grins at the thought as she and the rest of her companions start getting off the ship. "I see, thanks again for your help."

"No problem, take care!" Barbarossa and most of the other sand pirates wave them off as their friends continue walking.

"See you around! Let's sail again sometime!" Rose says as she walks backwards while she waves at them.

Nami waves to them then takes Eyelashes' reins and slowly drives the camel towards the village with Vivi sitting in the back.

The princess looks back at the ship and widens her eyes when she sees Rasa waving at her from the ship. Vivi tears up, when she feels slightly forgiven for what Rasa was put through, and waves back to her with a smile.

Usopp waves them off then turns to the group. "You guys really think Ace and Luffy could be at this village?"

Zoro casually shrugs as he keeps walking. "Who knows? With their luck they're probably there now and stuffing their faces."

Rose holds back from giggling at the assumption for she knows that it's true. She looks ahead at the village and starts getting nervous when she recalls last night's conversation about Luffy. She shakes her head to try to get rid of her worries and keeps on walking. _*Dammit, Nami's stupid comment keeps getting to me. Whatever was making Luffy upset yesterday is surely gone by now. Ace must've helped him out with it so there's no need to worry.*_

She nods to herself then softy grins at knowing that Ace and Luffy were able to spend more time together than in the storyline. _*If my information was able to help Ace in any way then maybe they'll have more time in the future too. Only time can tell I guess.*_

She keeps the small smile to herself as she keeps journeying through the desert with her friends in hopes of finding the two brothers.

* * *

At the outer wall of Ido village a young man in a white jacket and long pants sits under a canopy. He enjoys an apple from the pile of fruit next to him then looks through his telescope for any invaders. He scopes the area then stops when he spots Barbarossa's pirate flag through his telescope.

"T-that's a desert pirate flag!" He drops the telescope and stumbles to get up. "I gotta tell big bro!"

He quickly runs into town as fast as he can in order to find his comrades.

Meanwhile, in a small inn, a blonde, thin man, a short chubby man, and a large chubby man who are imitating the rebels are dining with the mayor.

The mayor happily smiles at his companions as he watches them eat. "You men truly are rebel soldiers. Ever since you and your comrades arrived Camus all the attacks have ended."

The blonde man known as Camus grins as he takes another gulp of his drink before he places the mug on the table. "Of course, pirates would be crazy to take the rebel army on. Just leave everything to us mayor."

The chubby man quickly nods. "Yes, you're right. But the rebel and the royal armies are going to clash soon. Won't staying here interfere with your work?"

The fake rebel dressed as a boxer and sitting next to Camus continues eating while he smiles at the mayor. "Nope, we can't leave a place that lets us eat all-"

Camus kicks him in the face before he can finish his remark then turns to the king with a reassuring smile. "What my friend meant was that there's no need to be concerned. You see, we may be rebels but we haven't completely lost faith in the king."

The mayor starts relaxing at his reassurance, but still keeps a worried look on his face. "I see, we have faith in him as well. We were hoping things could be handled carefully."

Camus raises his hand up to stop his worries. "Say no more. We promise to keep your village safe no matter what happens with the king. All we ask in return is booze and food."

The mayor brightens up at the agreement then bows his head. "Of course! Have as much as you need!" He gets up and starts leaving. "I must go attend to some other matters. Thank you again."

Camus smiles at the leaving mayor as he watches him leave then he takes a swig of his liquor again.

The fake rebel that Camus kicked gets up and looks at the doorway that the mayor left from. "Hey big bro, if we stay here while the real rebels are about to fight won't they get suspicious?"

Camus takes a bite of his food then swallows before he scoffs at the question. "Get real. We can't leave until we can take everything that we can get from this town."

The rebels starts to relax as they get back to their meal when the rebel that was on lookout rushes into the inn.

"Big bro! Terrible news!"

Camus swallows what's in his mouth then frowns at the comrade who rushed in. "What do you want?"

"Sand pirates are on their way here!"

The three fake rebels who were eating freeze at this.

The boxer stands up and looks at him in shock. "What?! Then what do we do?!"

The fake rebel dressed as a sumo wrestler and in a kimono, who was silent the whole time, stands up and looks at them in shock. "What are you talking about?! There's no way we can go against real pirates!"

"We can't just run away though!" The lookout retorts back then turns to Camus. "What's the plan here big bro?"

The other impostors turn to their leader but they all freeze when they see him packing some food into a sack.

Camus ties the bag to the end of his rifle as he carries the gun over his shoulder. "Alright, let's run away."

His lookout looks at him in shock. "What?! But what will we do after that? We'll just live on the edge of starvation again."

Camus doesn't waver as he frowns at his subordinate. "Shut up, staying alive is all that matters! We'll just go to another village. Now come on."

He starts heading to the doorway, but he stops him his tracks when he sees a large purple gecko blocking his path. "What the-?!"

"Whoa, look at all the food!" The fake rebels turn to Luffy's voice in shock to see him and Ace eating as if they were there the whole time.

"You cowards have some guts to call yourselves rebel soldiers." Ace says after he swallows his food then turns to the impostors. "If you ask me, it's pretty messed up for four grown men to pretend to be rebels."

All the rebels except for Camus glare at the intruders as they get ready to fight.

"It's none of your business! Who the hell are you anyway?!" The sumo wrestler says.

The boxer clenches his fists as he looks around. "How did you guys get in here anyway?!"

"Through the door." Luffy says as he points to the doorway at the opposite side of the room that leads to the same hallway.

"Well, get out you food thieves!" The lookout says as he and his two comrades charge at the pirates.

The two brothers however, easily overtook them and left them knocked out with growing lumps on their heads. They got back to their meals while they ignore Camus, who is just staring at his knocked out comrades in pure shock.

Luffy and Ace finish their dishes at the same time and reach their plate towards Camus. "More."

Camus flinches then quickly nods as he takes their dishes with a nervous smile. "O-of course!"

He rushes to give them the seconds and watches the brothers quickly chow it down.

Luffy finishes his food in a flash then smiles at the fake rebel. "The food here's great!"

Camus quickly nods as he gives the rubber man more food from his sack. "Yes, thank you…"

He looks at his knocked out friends for a moment to contemplate his options on how to deal with them and the sand pirates. When he comes up with a solution he goes on his hands and knees and bows to the two brothers. "I deeply apologize for the rough handling. I realize now that you two are no ordinary travelers. If you're willing I have a request. As you saw, we stand no chance against the sand pirates. Please lend us your help in protecting this village."

Luffy tilts his head at the idea, but before he can say anything Ace covers his mouth with his hand and starts speaking. "We're not against the idea, but it'll cost you."

Camus starts smiling widely at how his plan is turning out then he nods. "Yes, anything you want!"

"We need food and water for our travels." Ace says as Luffy happily nods to the demand while his mouth is still covered by his brother's hand.

Camus quickly nods at the agreement before he runs off to get his payment ready for them. Ace takes his hand off of Luffy's mouth and gets back to eating. "Sorry about that Lu, didn't want you saying that we'd do it for free."

Luffy casually eats with a smile. "Don't worry about it. We get a lot of free food now."

Ace chuckles as he finishes his meal. "Yup, once we take care of the sand pirates we can go back to finding your crew."

"Sounds good to me." Luffy says after he scarves down the last of the food.

Camus makes it back with a sled full of various kinds of food and a barrel full of water. "Will this be enough for you fine gentlemen?"

Luffy quickly nods. "Yea, this is great, thanks!"

Ace gets up with a smile and latches the sled onto the gecko. "We'll go take care of those pirates now. Thanks for the meal."

"Oh no, thank _you_ for your help." He sees the two brothers off as he watches them ride their gecko out of town.

The fake rebel sighs in relief as he sits down and finishes of his forgotten liquor. _*That take cares of that mess. Now we won't have to leave.*_

He goes to tends his comrades' injuries while he's full of relief that he doesn't have to worry about the pirates anymore.

* * *

Ace and Luffy happily ride their gecko out of the village and towards the direction they were told that the desert pirates are coming from. Ace looks around for the sand pirates that they're supposed to fight, but pauses when he sees a familiar camel on the horizon. "Hey Lu, isn't that the camel that took Nami and Vivi?"

Luffy looks over his brother's shoulder in confusion, but freezes when he sees the camel along with the rest of his crew. "Yea, it's them!"

He jumps off the gecko and starts running towards the crew. "Hey guys!"

The group pauses when they see Luffy running towards them with his brother riding behind him.

"So he really did make it there." Nami says as she watches her captain run towards them.

Sanji looks at the food that Ace's dragging with interest. "How did they score that?"

Usopp looks at the food with no belief that Luffy managed to get it. "Ace probably did it."

Luffy reaches the group with a large smile. "So this was where you guys went. How did you guys wander off?"

Zoro twitches an eyebrow at the assumption. "You and Ace were the ones who disappeared on us!"

"We were?"

The rest of his crew groans at their captain's ignorance but they let it go.

Ace makes it to them on his gecko then gets off the animal. "So you guys were the sand pirates?"

Rose shakes her head before she looks over the gecko with interest. "Nope, we just left the sand pirates."

Luffy pauses at Rose's voice when he remembers Ace's instructions to recruit her. He turns to Rose and runs up to her with a smile. "Rose!"

The freckled girl pauses and turns towards Luffy only to be pulled into a tight embrace by the captain. Most of the group was slack jawed at the sudden action as they watched Rose freeze in shock with her face heating up.

Sanji glares at Luffy and goes to stop him when Ace holds him back with a smirk. _*Do it Luffy!*_

Rose snaps out of it and tries to pull herself free but Luffy doesn't let her. "Luffy, what are you-?!"

"I'm full from lunch."

Rose stops struggling at the captain's statement and looks at him in pure confusion. "Huh?"

The rest of the group shares an equally confusing look as Luffy keeps listing off what he's feeling. "I'm glad I found everyone, I feel hot, and I-"

Ace cuts him off by whacking him on the head. "That's not what I meant by 'what you're feeling' you moron!"

Luffy lets go of the brunette in his arms and rubs his aching head. "But you said that if I do this then she'll join my crew!"

Rose and the others became completely speechless at the statement and have no idea on how to respond.

Rose's the first to calm down as she places her hand on Luffy's forehead to check for a fever. "Doc, I think Luffy's overheated!"

Chopper widens his eyes at the diagnosis. "Really?!" He goes to approach them but Usopp grabs the back of his jacket to hold him back.

Luffy scowls at his friend's disbelief and takes her hand off him. "Stop it, I feel fine! I'm not drunk like last time either!"

Rose widens her eyes at the declaration. _*Oh crap, he remembers?!*_

Sanji and Usopp, who were the only ones that didn't know the secret, dropped their jaws at the declaration and spoke simultaneously. "You asked her to join when you were drunk?!"

Luffy nods as he turns to them. "Yea, I forgot for a bit, but Ace helped me to remember."

 _*He what?!*_ Rose clenches her fists at how Ace ratted her out then quietly sighs. "You really remember our fight?"

Luffy turns back to her with a frown. "Yea, you should've told me that's what we fought about!"

"I already told you why I didn't. I don't want to argue about joining the crew again, because It's not happening."

Luffy widens his eyes at this. "Eh?! But I did what Ace said, and told you what I was feeling while hugging you!"

Ace groans at the explanation and covers his face with his hand. "Those weren't the feelings you were supposed to tell her..."

Luffy turns to his brother with a look of confusion on his face. "Then what feeling was I supposed to tell her?"

"Yea Ace, I'm dying to know as well. What exactly did you tell him?" Rose asks as she starts glaring at him while she cracks her knuckles.

Ace flinches when he sees her purple eyes piercing through him then takes a step back. "Umm well…" He doesn't see her glare wavering any time soon as she approaches him, so he decides to run.

"Get back here dammit!" She chases after him while the others blankly watch.

Luffy tilts his head at chase between the two logia users, because he has no idea what's going on. "Why's Rose so mad?"

"She didn't want you to remember, because she didn't want to fight with you for the whole trip." Nami says as she gets off the camel.

"But I still want her to join the crew."

Usopp sweat drops at his captain's stubborn attitude. "That's why she didn't want you to remember..."

Vivi sighs before she looks at the food and changes the subject. "Luffy, how did you and Ace get so much food? You didn't steal it did you?"

Luffy lets go of the argument then turns to Vivi with a smile. "We didn't steal it. The fake rebel army gave it to us."

Vivi widens her eyes at this. "Wait, what do you mean fake?"

Luffy shrugs as he grabs a drink from the barrel. "They called themselves rebels but they didn't look that tough. They asked us to go and protect the village from the sand pirates for them."

Nami looks at him in shock. "They must've faked it to get free food. Wouldn't they have been found out though?"

Luffy shrugs at the assumption. "Don't know, they looked pretty weird. The town looked pretty safe though."

Vivi clenches her fists at the thought of people using the rebel army's name in order to get free food. "Rebel soldiers aren't meant to be bodyguards nor was their name meant to give them free food…"

Sanji light up his cigarette and puffs a smoke before he turns to the princess. "Should we go teach them a lesson Vivi?"

Vivi keeps her fists tight as her hood covers her eyes. She remembers how her kingdom wasn't able to help the Oasis Rasa grew up in and how her kingdom can't help every town. She lifts her head when she comes to a conclusion. "There's nothing wrong with villages seeking help in order to keep themselves safe."

Nami blinks at the explanation. "Does that mean we're going to let them go?"

Vivi shakes her head with a smile. "No, I want to test them first. If these impostors truly wish to protect the village then it should be fine to leave them as is."

Zoro quirks an eyebrow at this. "So you want to test their character then?"

Vivi nods. "Yes. So, I hate to ask but would you all be willing to fake an invasion?"

Sanji quickly nods with hearts in his eyes. "We'd be more than happy to help Vivi-chwan!"

Luffy grins at the idea. "Yea, it'll be fun!"

Chopper looks at his captain in confusion. "If you were hired to get rid of us then shouldn't you stay out of it Luffy?"

Nami quickly shakes her head at the question. "This shouldn't be a problem. We'll just tell him that he was pretending to help them or something."

Usopp widens his eyes at the idea then tilts his head in thought. "Yea, that can work." He pauses when he looks back at the chase between Rose and Ace. "What about them?"

Nami sweat drops at the sight of Ace is running in circles to avoid the wind girl's wrath. "Maybe we should let them settle things. If they keep running in circles then they shouldn't get far."

Luffy nods as he turns around and walks ahead. "Ace said that he's not going to take her with him so it's fine. Let's get going."

The others widen their eyes at the comment as they watch their captain walk ahead. They look at each other for a brief moment before they run after him.

Nami looks back at where the chase is happening with a smirk. _*Looks like making him jealous worked. Great job Ace!*_

The navigator keeps a smirk on her face as she and the others head towards the village where the fake rebels reside.

Meanwhile, Rose continues to relentlessly run after the freckled man with no signs of letting him off easy. "Quit running asshole!"

"No way!" Ace quickly side steps to avoid her kick and keeps running.

Rose clenches her fists in frustration before she flies after him and manages to go in front of him to punch him in the nose.

Ace falls on his butt while he cradles his aching nose. "What's with you and aiming for the face?!"

Rose narrows her eyes at him as she lands while she crosses her arms over her chest. "I'm the one asking questions here! Why the hell did you tell Luffy about the fight?!"

"I didn't!"

"Then how did he remember?!"

Ace hesitates for a moment before smirking. "You noticed yourself how Luffy was acting strangely yesterday."

Rose widens her eyes at what he said but keeps on a poker face. "What does that have to do with this?"

Ace widens his eyes at the oblivious question then makes it clear for her. "Didn't you notice him acting like that around us? He's been jealous that I was getting close to you."

Rose freezes at the answer for a moment before she shakes her head. "Ace, the last thing your brother can be is jealous. You of all people should know that."

Ace twitches an eyebrow at her refusal to believe it then gets up. "It's true! He was completely jealous yesterday and last night too!"

"Then tell me, what happened last night to make him jealous?"

Ace pauses at the question before he smirks at how he managed to make him jealous. "Last night I made him the most jealous out of the whole day. I was messing with him by telling him how since you weren't in his crew, I was going to ask you to come with me."

Rose drops her jaw at the explanation. "You did what?!"

Ace pauses and raises his hands defensively to avoid the risk of getting punched again. "Relax, I wasn't serious in taking you with me. I was only messing with him. You should've seen his face though. If I wasn't his brother then he might've tried to kick my ass."

Rose freezes at the explanation as a small blush starts creeping onto her face. _*He was that mad when Ace threatened to take me with him? So he really was jealous? Wait…*_

Ace quirks an eyebrow when he sees her lips curl up into a smile then flinches when he sees her laughing. "What the hell?!"

Rose clenches her sides from laughing so hard as she makes sense of it all in her mind. _*Luffy was just angry that Ace might steal his nakama! What captain wouldn't be mad if someone from another crew was getting close?! This makes so much sense now!*_

Ace starts getting nervous when he sees her still laughing at his explanation. _*Oh my god, I think I broke her!*_ He goes up to her, but is completely confused about what he should do. "Hey, are you ok?!"

Rose nods as she finally stops laughing and keeps a small smile on her face. "Yea, I'm fine. Things just make sense now. Still…"

She flies up to his height to distract him before she smacks him upside the head. "You shouldn't have made him remember."

Ace rubs the back of his head then frowns at her. "You're still going to refuse him?"

She nods as she looks around for the others. "Yup, it's for the best." She pauses when she sees that they got left behind by the others. "But right now, we need to find them first."

She lifts herself and Ace up with her wind then starts flying them towards the village.

Ace looks at the village in shock then looks at her in confusion. "Wait, we're heading to the village?"

Rose nods as she looks ahead to the town. "Yea, knowing Vivi, she probably asked the crew to test those fake rebels that gave you food."

He quirks an eyebrow at the declaration. _*Wait, did we tell her that we got the food from fake rebels?*_

He shrugs it off as they get closer to the village. Once close enough to the outer wall, they see the villagers on the outer wall watch the boys in Luffy's crew surround the fake rebels, so that they can't run.

Rose looks at a nearby boulder to see that Eyelashes and the girls are hiding behind it. She quickly lands the two of them next to them in order to avoid getting spotted. "What's the big idea of leaving us?"

Nami and Vivi jolt at Rose's voice then turn around to see her and Ace standing behind them.

Vivi sighs in relief that they're ok then turns back to the show. "Sorry, but we wanted to test the fake rebels to see if they're worthy of staying."

"They're acting pretty spineless though." Nami says as she peeks over the rock to see Camus and his companions looking at the pirates nervously.

Rose looks over the rock to see that the boys have the fake rebels surrounded. "So if they fail then we get to kick their asses?"

Vivi nods as she looks at the rebels. "Yes, but let's see how it goes a little longer."

Ace smirks at the show as he goes to sneak into the town. "Maybe what they need is a push."

The girls look at the freckled man in confusion as he goes off to sneak past the wall. The girls look at each other for a moment then go back to watching their friends surround the impostors.

Camus looks at Luffy's face in utter dread. _*That guy's the 30 million bounty pirate?! But we already fed him! Wait, where did his companion go?!*_

He looks around to see that none of the crew members with him resembles the freckled man that traveled with him. He looks back at the serious look in Luffy's eyes causing fear to dwell in his body. _*He looks so much scarier than before! Is this really the guy who was stuffing his face before?!*_

"Come on rebel soldiers!"

"You can do it!"

Camus snaps out of it as he and his henchmen look back at the villagers to see them cheering for them.

"Hey!" The group turns around to Luffy's voice to see him glaring at them. "If you don't want to get hurt then move."

The four impostors cry comical tears as they stay frozen in place

"Um, well." Camus tries to come up with something to say when his look out turns to him.

"What do we do now? We can't escape."

Camus tries to come up with a correct answer but freezes when he hears Ace's voice mixed through the cheering villagers.

"Hey guys."

The four fakes freeze at the freckled man's voice as they looks around to find him but they can't.

"What's going on? Aren't you with the crew?" Camus asks softly so that the cheering villagers can't hear.

"I'm not, we were just travelling together."

"If that's true then help us."

Ace snickers at this from his hiding place behind the wall as he keeps going. "This isn't my fight it's yours. Try to get through this on your own."

Camus widens his eyes at this but keeps trying to convince him. "We can't do that! We're fakes!"

"If you're men, then act like it. How long are you gonna keep up this petty crap of yours?"

Camus pauses at this when his comrade that's dressed as a boxer turns to him. "So what do we do big bro?!"

Camus nervously turns to him as he tries to figure out what to do. When he figures out what he has to do he narrows his eyes at the pirate. "We have no choice but to lie our way out of this!"

The other impostors look at him in confusion as he steps up and glares at Luffy. "Listen you, we have to warn you!"

The pirates and the villagers look at the fake rebel in confusion as he points to the village. "Listen up, we're not the only rebels here! Through these walls there are over 100 million more soldiers like us just ready for you when you come in!"

The villagers look at him in confusion as they stop cheering for them.

Usopp sweat drops at the lie and mutters under his breath. "That was worse than a kid's lie."

"You're not one to talk." Sanji says as he grabs a cigarette and watches how his captain will react.

Luffy stares at him intensely until his eyes bug out from the shock. "WHAT?! 100 MILLION?!"

Sanji and Usopp face plant from their captain believing the terrible lie then they stand up and yell simultaneously. "THAT WASN'T EVEN BELIEVABLE!"

"What?! That was a lie?!" Luffy says as he turns to them in shock.

Chopper, who was silent this whole time in heavy point, sighs in relief in knowing that it was a lie. "That was close."

Zoro turns to him in disbelief. "You believed him too?!"

Chopper nods but stay quiet while Luffy glares at the impostors.

Luffy gets his fists ready as he narrows his eyes at the rebels. "How dare you trick me?!"

Camus steps back in fear as Luffy pulls his fist back. "Gum gum pistol!"

Luffy throws a punch square in Camus' face that sends him flying ten feet backwards.

Camus' three men just stare at their collapsed leader in utter shock as Luffy's rubber arm pulls back. "What the hell?!"

The villagers look at the Camus' state in utter shock as they talk among themselves.

"That pirate's a devil fruit user?!"

"One hit knocked him out!"

Nami looks at Luffy in shock from her hiding place then groans. "Luffy you idiot! You didn't need to go that far! The plan won't work if he knocks him out."

Rose shrugs when she sees Luffy walking towards the others while cracking his knuckles. "I wouldn't be so sure. Looks like a turn around's coming."

Nami and Vivi look at her in confusion then looks back to see Luffy still going towards the other fake rebels.

The villagers look at the pirate in fear when a group of kids start calling out to Camus.

"Big brother Camus get up!"

"The pirates are coming! Hurry!"

In Camus' daze from the punch, he remembers how he used to cheer to the warriors of Alabasta as a child as he listens to the children's pleas. He starts snapping out of it then looks up at the wall to see the villagers and the kids relying on him.

 _*"How long are you gonna keep up this petty crap of yours?"*_ He pauses when Ace's words ring through his head again and forces himself to stand up.

He sees Luffy cracking his knuckles to get ready to attack his subordinates. Before Luffy can touch any of the subordinates though, Camus rushes to the scene and grabs Luffy's arm before he can punch anyone.

The henchmen, pirates, and villagers look at Camus in shock as the fake rebel glares at Luffy. Camus narrows his eyes at Luffy as he clenches his free hand. "Yes, we're not real rebels. Even though all we wanted was to be the heroes that we saw as kids, we wound up as scoundrels. Even if I can't live my dream I can't let those kids' dreams die. If I have to live the rest of my life with those kids seeing me as a scoundrel then I'd rather die as a hero today!"

Luffy smirks at his enemy's speech just before he was punched in the face by the fake rebel leader.

The rest of the crew that are in the act look at Luffy in shock as they watch Camus knock him down.

"Bastard!" Sanji starts walk up to them but the fake revolutionary that's dressed as a sumo wrestler blocks them off.

Usopp looks at the large, nervous man in confusion. "What's your deal?"

The sumo wrestler steels his nerves as he stands his ground. "You won't pass!"

Camus looks at him in shock as he keeps going. "Your dream is my dream big bro! We may have been scoundrels since we were kids but you were always there to protect the weak!"

The sum wrestler raises his fist up and tries to punch Sanji to the ground, but the chef jumps back in time to dodge. Sanji looks in shock to see that while the impostors words are strong he's still tearing up in fear. "No matter what, I'll stay on your side big bro! If you're staying to fight then so will I!"

Camus softens at his friend's speech before he sees his other two subordinates getting ready for action.

The two rebels glare at the pirates. "We don't have anything to lose!"

"Guys…" Camus begins to feel touched by the sentiment before he glares at the pirate that's still down. "So that's how it is! We're not leaving so come at us!"

Nami smiles at the show from her hiding spot. "Looks like they're not running. Though it looks like they're only doing it because they're backed into a corner."

Vivi nods as she looks at them. "Yes, but I don't think they can change that easily unless they have a good reason deep in their hearts."

Rose nods as she turns to the princess. "So that means they're ok?"

"Yes, I can entrust this place to them. At least for now."

Nami smiles at this as she takes a mirror from her pocket in order to reflect the sunlight into Usopp's face as the signal.

Usopp cringes at the flash in his eyes then realizes that it's the signal. "Sanji, we gotta go!"

Sanji turns to him while just then realizes what he meant.

Meanwhile, Camus keeps his stance ready to wait for the pirates to attack. "So what's it gonna be pirates?!"

Luffy grins at the determination in Camus' face as he sits. "Shishishi, this is great. Now I can face Crocodile without worrying!"

The fake rebels and the villagers look at Luffy in confusion as they watch the rubber man stand up. "Man, this is a rel-"

"Shut up and come on!" Sanji says as he grabs Luffy's shoulder and runs away with the others. Sanji keeps a smirk on his face as he runs away while yelling loud enough for everyone to hear. "THOSE BASTARDS! THOSE REBEL SOLDIERS ARE TOO FRIGHTENING!"

Usopp follows in suit as he yells while running. "I'VE NEVER SEEN SUCH STRONG PEOPLE BEFORE!"

Zoro rolls his eyes at his friends' acting as he runs after them with Chopper.

Camus looks at the fleeing pirates in shock, as he stands still. "What just happened?"

He snaps out of his daze when he hears the villagers cheering for the four of them. The four protectors softly smile at the cheering crowd as they go back into the village with a renewed ambition to protect their people.

Meanwhile, Ace rushes out of town before he can be spotted and catches up to his brother and the rest of the group. "Hey Luffy."

Luffy smiles as he turns to his brother. "Hey Ace."

"How long are we gonna keep running? They can't see us now."

Luffy shrugs as he laughs at the fight. "Until we're tired."

Rose chuckles at the blunt answer when Luffy turns to her. "Rose, join my crew!"

Rose loses her smile as she remembers her situation then shakes her head. "I'm not joining you Luffy!"

"I refuse your refusal!"

"I refuse your refusal to my refusal!"

"Then I refuse that too!"

"You can't do that!"

"I just did!"

The rest of the crew sweat drops at the childish argument between Rose and Luffy, but they don't stop them because they know neither side will back down.

Zoro quietly sighs at the argument as he keeps running, and speaks more to himself than to anyone else. "This trip just made itself even longer…"

TO BE CONTINUED


	17. Chapter 17

The crew's journey felt painstakingly slow as they traveled through the scorching desert for the rest of the day. It doesn't help that at the back of the herd, Rose and Luffy are still arguing about her joining the crew.

"I'm not joining you Luffy!"

"What's so bad about being a pirate?!"

"I never said there's anything bad about it!"

"Then join my crew!"

"For the last time no!"

Sanji turns to the back of the group to glare at Luffy. "Luffy, leave her alone. If she doesn't want to join then you shouldn't force her."

Luffy scowls at the command before he points to the brunette next to him. "Why do I have to give up? She's the one being stubborn."

Rose furrows her eyebrows at the remark. "You have no right to call me that! You're practically the king of stubbornness!"

"I'm not the king of stubbornness; I'm gonna be king of the pirates! That's why you should join-!"

"Shut the hell up already!" She accidentally loses her temper, and makes a strong gust of hot wind to push him away.

The rest of the group stops and looks in shock to see her wind knocking Luffy on his butt. Rose frantically stops her wind then looks around  
to see everyone staring at her. She sadly frowns at everyone's eyes on her before she turns away from Luffy. "Sorry…"

She quickly walks past the group while she keeps her focus on her feet to avoid their stares. _*Dammit, this is exactly what I was worried about… How the hell am I going to change his mind?*  
_  
The others watch her walking off for a moment before they move to catch up to her. Luffy quickly gets up and tries to reach Rose, but Usopp places a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

Luffy looks back at his friend to see him shaking his head before he speaks out of the wind girl's hearing range. "Give her some time to cool off. She'll send you flying at this rate."

Luffy looks back at Rose for a moment before he sighs in defeat. "Fine, I don't get why she won't join though…"

Ace looks back at his brother with a small frown before he goes next to him. "Then that's what you gotta find out. Once you know why, then you can do something about it."

The younger brother blinks at the advice before his large smile returns. "Great idea! Thanks Ace!"

"Anytime Lu." Ace softly smiles at his brother as he and the others start catching up to the group.

Rose continues to walk ahead at a small distance while Eyelashes walks up next to her with Nami and Vivi on his back. The brunette doesn't notice them as she keeps walking with her head down.

Vivi and Nami exchange a worried glance to one another before Vivi turns to Rose. "Are you alright?"

Rose snaps out of it before she gives them a small smile. "Yea, I'll be fine. Sorry about the wind."

Nami shakes her head at the apology. "It's not your fault. Luffy never knows when to stop."

"You got that right…" Rose says as she rakes her hand through her bangs. She looks back to see that they still have a small distance from the guys then turns back to the girls. "Hey Nami, do you have any tips?"

Nami quirks an eyebrow at the question. "Tips?"

"On how I can change Luffy's mind."

She blinks at the request before she chuckles. "No, but if you ever find one then pass it to me."

Rose giggles at the answer before she nods. "Sure."

Vivi looks over Nami's shoulder to see that they're reaching a small terrain with tall rocks filling the area. She looks up, to see that the sun's starting to set, then turns to Nami. "Maybe we should call it a day. That terrain over there will be a good place to set up camp."

Nami looks over the terrain then nods. "Good idea." She turns around to call out to the guys. "Guys, we're gonna set up camp at the rocks!"

The guys look over at the terrain and waste no time travelling there with the girls. Once the group's close enough to the cylinder shaped rocks, Rose flies onto one of the thirty foot tall piece of earth.

The group looks up at her in shock while she stares down at them. "I'm gonna explore the area! I have enough food in my bag for dinner, so don't worry about me!"

Luffy widens his dark eyes at the announcement as he watches her use her wind to jump from one rock to another to go into the ravine. "HEY, WAIT!"

He runs after her and leaves the rest of the group in the dust.

Zoro sweat drops at the sight of his captain running off before he sighs. "Finally, it's quiet now."

"Idiot, don't treat Rose-chan's distress as a nuisance!" Sanji says, which causes the two of them to glare at one another.

Usopp shakes his head before he takes his bag off his back. "Let's just set up camp already…"

The others nod in agreement as they set up their campsite. Sanji starts cooking dinner for the crew while the rest of the crew sets up the tents and fire pit.

Chopper starts relaxing by the fire when he hears Luffy and Rose yelling in the distance.

"JOIN MY CREW ROSE!"

"NOT HAPPENING LUFFY!"

Chopper blinks at the yelling then stares at the path they took. "Wow, and I thought he was persistent when he recruited me."

Nami chuckles at her captain's persistence as she sits down next to the reindeer. "You don't know the half of it. Once Luffy wants someone in his crew, it's almost impossible to change his mind."

Chopper looks up at the navigator with curiosity in his eyes. "Really? How did he recruit you Nami?"

The redhead softly smiles at the memory of how Luffy recruited her. "When I was a kid, I was forced to join a crew of fishman pirates who took over my village. I had to steal from other pirates in order to raise the money to buy everyone's freedom. That included Luffy and the others. However, despite tricking the crew and stealing from them, Luffy still wanted me in the crew. When he found out my situation, he confronted Arlong and freed my village."

The ones who were involved in the fight to save Nami's village from Arlong's crew stare at the navigator softly, while the rest look at her in shock.

"Luffy really did that?" Ace asks with Nami to nodding with a smile.

"Yea, I don't know what would've happened if he and the others didn't help. And now I can make my map of the world."

Chopper can only blink at the incredible story that he heard. "Wow, that's amazing…"

Usopp nods before he smiles at Chopper. "If you think that was amazing then you should hear my story. I saved my hometown from the Black Cat pirates with my 8,000 men, and Luffy was so amazed that he begged me to-"

Nami cuts him off with a whack to the head. "Don't make stuff up! You'll confuse him!"

Chopper widens his eyes at the confrontation. "So it's not true?!"

The navigator shakes her head before she tells him the real version of how Usopp was recruited. "No, we travelled to his island to get a ship. The island was about to be ransacked by the Black Cat Pirates, but Luffy, Zoro and I took them down while Usopp protected his rich friend. His friend was so grateful for our help that she gave us the Going Merry. After that, Luffy asked Usopp to join."

Usopp rubs the bump on his head before he smiles at Chopper. "Yup, Luffy not only took me as a crewmate but Merry as well."

The small reindeer blinks at the thought of the Going Merry being a crewmate. "Merry's a crewmate too?"

The sniper nods with a knowing smirk on his face. "Of course, Merry's just as important as everyone else here. Don't ever forget it."

"I won't."

Vivi remains silent as she takes in the stories of how some of her friends were recruited into Luffy's crew. Hearing how the crew wasn't forced to join, but instead were drawn in by Luffy's personality causes her to softly smile at them.

The princess snaps back to reality when Sanji presents a plate of food in front of her. "For you my lady."

Vivi smiles at the dish before taking it from the chef. "Thank you Sanji. By the way, how were you asked to join?"

Sanji finishes passing the dishes to everyone before he grabs a cigarette from his pocket. "Sadly, Luffy made an terrible entrance. He caused cannonball to blast into the restaurant that I worked in."

Ace snorts from the hilarious scenario before he lights Sanji's cigarette. "That sounds exactly like Luffy."

The chef quietly sighs at the memory as he takes a drag from the lit cigarette. "My boss was so mad that he made Luffy agree to work there for a year. But, he managed to get out of it by helping us fight off a pirate crew that tried to take over the restaurant."

Chopper tilts his head at the story. "Really? Then how did you join?"

"He got fired." Zoro says, so the chef sends a kick his way, but the swordsman quickly blocks him.

"That's not what happened! I left to find the All Blue! How did you wind up being the first member anyway moss head?!"

Zoro scoffs at the question. "Like I need to tell you curly brow."

"What?!" Sanji lunges at Zoro and goes into a leg and sword brawl with him while the others enjoy their meal.

Usopp finishes his meal before he looks back at the terrain. "Luffy's been out there a while. Think he'll come back?"

Nami shakes her head at the question. "He'll probably be out there all night trying to recruit her."

Ace chuckles as he looks at the ravine. "That sounds about right. We just gotta wait and see what happens."

The others smile at the agreement before Ace passes out and falls on his back. "HE FELL ASLEEP?!"

Chopper rushes to his side to make sure that the freckled man's breathing steadily. He goes into heavy point to move him in order for him to sleep in a more comfortable position, and then turns to the others. "He's ok; it's just another narcoleptic fit."

After being assured that their friend is okay, the rest of the group returns to their meal.

Chopper transforms back into a two legged reindeer then looks back at the terrain. _*If Luffy managed to convince all of us then maybe there's hope for Rose to change her mind too.*  
_  
He grins at the idea of Rose joining the crew before he goes back to enjoying his evening with the others.

* * *

Rose relentlessly jumps from rock to rock with Luffy chasing her from the ground below. "GET BACK HERE ROSE!"  
 _  
*Now where have I heard that line before? Oh yea, my whole life.*_ Rose chuckles at the comment she made in her head before she calls down to him. "ONLY IF YOU STOP ASKING ME TO JOIN!"

"HELL NO!"

"THEN WE GOT NOTHING TO TALK ABOUT!" She blasts as much wind as she can to fly past ten rocks and causes Luffy to lose sight of her.

"OH, COME ON!" He follows the gust through the terrain in order to find the wind girl. However, as Luffy ran off to follow the wind, Rose was sitting on a rock that was five feet away from the trail he took.

She looks around her surroundings to see that Luffy's nowhere in sight, and sighs in relief as she takes off her backpack to relax. "Damn, this is what it was like when he chased doc? I'm gonna go nuts at this rate…"

The brunette runs her hands through her hair in frustration before she tries to think of a plan. _*There's gotta be a way to convince him... Maybe if I tell him what the crew has that I don't. I mean, they're all working to achieve a special goal and I'm just aiming for…*  
_  
She stops her train of thought when she looks back on her dream to discover the secrets of the Timore comet and to learn how to use the comet's power to travel the universes. She groans to herself as she covers her face with her hands and lies down on her back. "Oh my god, my freaking dream can actually live up to the crew's reputation… Shit..."

She takes her hands away from her purple eyes so that they meet with the evening sky. She softly gazes at the stars that are starting to come out, ans gently caresses her necklace. _*What would mom and dad have done in this situation?*  
_  
She snaps out of her thoughts to the sound of her stomach growling then sits up cross legged. "Maybe some dinner will help me think."

She digs into her bag to grab an apple and a mango then chows down on them. Once she's done she digs inside for some more food, but takes a closer look to see that some of her apples are missing. "What the-?! When did Luffy steal my food?!"

"Why do you think I did it?!"

Rose pauses when she hears Luffy's voice behind her. She quickly turns around to see his torso over the edge of the rock as he pulls himself up.

She scoots backwards so that he has enough room to get on the rock then shows him the bag. "Nobody else would take my food!"

Luffy pouts at the accusation as he pulls the rest of his body over the edge, and sits cross legged. "It could've been Ace..."

Rose pauses at the excuse then furrows her eyebrows. "Oh really, then you can honestly tell me that you never took my food?"

He widens his eyes at the question before he purses his lips and shifts his eyes everywhere. "N-no way… I never took your food…"

Rose blinks at the terrible lie before she starts giggling. "Hahaha, you're never allowed to call me a terrible liar again."

Luffy blinks at the freckled girl's cute giggles before he smiles at her. "I won't call you a bad liar again if you join my crew."

She immediately stops smiling as she remembers that they're still fighting. She sadly frowns at him before she places her hands on her knees and bows her head. "Luffy, please stop asking me to join."

Luffy widens his eyes at the formal request. "What the-?! Don't act formal! I don't want to stop until you join!"

She quietly sighs as she lifts her head. "Sorry, but I can't."

"Why not?!"

Rose rubs the back of her head while she tries to come up with an answer to convince him to give up. Not wanting to go into any details about her dream, she decides to go try another way about it. "You saw how my wind acted up when we were arguing. I don't have enough control to become a pirate. One wrong move and I can destroy the Going Merry by accident."

The captain can only tilt his head at the excuse. "That's a dumb reason."

Rose pauses at the blunt statement before she looks at him in confusion. "How's that dumb?"

"Your power's awesome, and you're getting better at it. If you ever send yourself flying again then I'll reel you in like I always did."

Rose widens her eyes at the statement as she remembers the times that he pulled her towards his side. She quickly shakes her head at the suggestion while she nervously smiles at him. "T-that's ok, my flying's not the problem! It's more about me using it in a fight!"

"That doesn't make sense either. The way you've been fighting so far has been great. If we go against anyone really tough then I'll take care of them."

Rose shakes her head as she gets up and puts on her backpack. "Sorry, but since I'm not joining you don't need to. I'd rather fight my own battles anyway."

Luffy widens his eyes at the refusal before he stands up. "But you still didn't give me a good reason!"

She internally groans at his stubboenness before she points towards the sky. "Here's one then, I already said that I want to be an astronomer. That doesn't mix with being a pirate."

"Who told you that?!"

"You ever heard of a pirate astronomer before?"

"No."

"Then that proves that it doesn't work."

"That's not true, that just means you get to be the first one."

Frustration begins to well up in the wind girl as she scowls at him. "Well then maybe I just don't want-!" She stops herself from saying that she doesn't want to be in his crew, because she knows that's a lie.

Luffy tilts his head at the unfinished statement. "You don't want what?"

Her scowl morphs into a small frown as she turns around to find the light from the crew's campfire in the distance. "I don't want to cause any more trouble. Let's just leave it at that."

Luffy blinks at the explanation. "What do you mean by-?!"

He stops himself when Rose lifts him up with a gust of cold wind and starts flying with her. "Where are we going?"

She keeps her stare up ahead as she carries them towards the campfire's light. "Back to the campsite. Hopefully Sanji saved you a plate."

Luffy quickly brightens up at the mention of food. "Yea, let's go!"

Rose smiles at how she escaped the argument before Luffy frowns at her. "This isn't over though. I still want you to join."

Rose softly frowns at his refusal to give up, but she doesn't give him another response for the rest of the night.

* * *

Just before the sun starts rising with the group sleeping soundly. That is, except for Rose who just woke up from her mind constantly coming up with ways to convince Luffy to give up all night long. In order to shake off her bad night sleep, without waking the others, she flies onto one of the rocks.

She looks down at the crew below her for a moment before she moves a few rocks away from them. _*Since I'm up, I can at least get some training done. Anything to help get my mind off things.*  
_  
She stops on a rock that gives her a few feet of walking space. She gets in a stance at the center of the rocks and throws punches in order to turn her arms into wind. However, she only succeeded in blasting wind out of her fists.

She stops punching and looks down at her arms. This time she tries to focus on all of her wind into her right arm when the thin arm starts to become transparent. She starts smiling broadly as she sees her arm turning into air, but it becomes a stronger gust than she anticipated and pushes her backwards.

She quickly turns her arm back to normal as she stumble backwards to regain her balance just before she reaches the edge. She sighs in frustration as she looks down at her arm. "Damn."

"Isn't it a little early for training?"

Rose pauses at the masculine voice behind her, and quietly sighs when she turns around to see Ace casually sitting on another rock. "Couldn't sleep, what's your excuse for being up?"

"The wind was howling too loud."

Rose pauses at the complaint before she rubs the back of her head sheepishly. "Sorry."

Ace chuckles before he stands up. "Relax, I'm just teasing. What part of your wind are you working on?"

"I was working on turning my arm into wind. I managed to make it, but there's still no control."

Ace blinks at this. "You managed to turn it into wind on command? It took me two weeks to do that."

Rose widens her eyes at this. "Really?!"

Ace casually nods as he remembers how he turned his arm into fire for the first time. "Yup, back when I was fighting a marine captain. I was so surprised that I finally turned my arm into fire that I aimed poorly and set the jerk's pants on fire."

Rose drops her jaw at the story before she starts laughing. "Hahaha, are you serious?! I'd give a million beli to see that!"

Ace chuckles at the story then he gives her some instructions. "Here's a tip that I found helpful. When you're turning your arm into wind think of the element as a part of your body."

Rose takes a moment to process his instruction before she turns to the side. She takes a deep breath and focuses on her arm. She only pays attention to her breathing as she thinks about how the wind's a part of her arm. When she sees that her arm's starting to transform she smiles, but doesn't let up as she focuses her energy to transform her arm into a gentle breeze. After she succeeds she stops her wind to allow her arm to turn back to normal.

Rose grins in excitement while she catches her breath then raises her fists up to the new morning sky. "Yes, finally!"

Ace chuckles at the freckled girl's over excitement. "You're acting like you won a fight."

Rose pauses when she remembers that she's not alone then smirks at her fellow logia user. "This is my first step to do that. Thanks Ace."

He casually shrugs at the gratitude. "Just keeping my promise. Still, if you're not becoming a pirate then why are you working so hard?"

Rose starts losing her smirk as she remembers her situation with Luffy, before she quickly puts another smile on. "I have plenty of reasons, but I'll give you some of them. First, even though I'm not in the crew I promised Vivi to help save her country. Second, I want to know what my power can do. Third…"

Her smile begins to grow as she gives him the peace sign. "As one of the freckled elements it's my duty to get stronger, so that I give us a good reputation."

Ace twitches an eyebrow at the team name before he jumps onto her rock and whacks her on the head. "Enough with the 'freckled elements' crap!"

Rose rubs her head while she chuckles at his reaction. "Not happening, the name's too cool to pass up."

Ace groans at her stubbornness as he rubs his face, but he quickly pauses when he realizes that this is a good chance to question her. "Hey, why do you keep refusing to join Luffy anyway?"

Rose widens her eyes at the question before she shifts her eyes towards her feet. "It's complicated… See, I already have my own goals to accomplish. Like I said before, this is for the best."

Ace raises an eyebrow at the answer before Rose lifts herself up with her wind. She gives him a quick smile before she starts flying off. "Well, I don't know about you but I'm hungry. I'm gonna see if the others are up. Thanks again for the help Ace."

The Whitebeard pirate blinks at the retreat as he watches her fly back to the camp. _*What kind of answer was that?! If the rest of Luffy's crew can follow him while chasing their goals then why can't she? Ugh, she's making no sense… Looks like Luffy's got a long way to go with her...*  
_  
Ace sighs in disappointment in not being able to help his brother before he follows her back to the campsite.

What neither of them noticed however, was that on top of a distant rock a middle aged man, dressed in a plaid shirt that's covered by his overalls, has been watching them. "That man, could it really be him?"

The brown haired man tilts his motorcycle helmet, with a scorpion symbol decorating the front of it, then grabs his telescope. He places the telescope in front of his eyes, which are hidden by his sunglasses, and takes a closer look at the freckled man. "It's really Fire Fist Ace!"

He grins in victory as he wakes up the sleeping ostrich that's wearing a similar helmet. "Popo, wake up! We got a bounty to catch!"

The ostrich grudgingly nods as he stands around while he watches his owner scramble to get ready for his bounty.

* * *

As Luffy's crew enjoys their breakfast, Luffy and Usopp go over to Sanji after they finish their meal. They hold their empty plates to the chef while they speak simultaneously. "Sanji, seconds please!"

Sanji twitches an eyebrow before he kicks them both in the face. "Shut up, you ate enough!"

Usopp groans at the kick and stays down. Luffy however, stretches his arm towards Zoro as he's eating his own breakfast and snatches a piece of his meat.

Zoro widens his eyes when he sees Luffy grab a piece of his meal. "Luffy! Quit taking other people's food!"

He tackles his captain to try to get his food back with his captain not giving in. In the meantime, Usopp recovers from the kick and starts arguing with Sanji about seconds.

The three girls casually enjoy their meal as they stay out of the fight.

"Why does this happen at every meal?" Vivi asks as she watches Luffy and Zoro fight.

Rose finishes her meal then chuckles at the argument going on in front of her. "Beats me, at least it doesn't get boring." She digs into her bag to get her camera and takes a few quick pictures. Once she's satisfied, she places the camera back in the bag.

Nami shakes her head at Rose's attitude as she keeps eating. "Don't encourage them. They always overdo it."

She takes a look at the rock next to them to see Ace sitting alone and cleaning the utensils he used. "Look up there though, Ace is cleaning after himself and not causing trouble. He's completely different from his brother."

Vivi and Rose follow her gaze towards the fire logia user for a moment.

Rose casually shrugs as she starts cleaning her plate with a napkin. "I wouldn't say they're completely different. They're both pirates with large bounties after all."

Vivi blinks at the comparison. "You know about Ace's bounty?"

Rose finishes cleaning her plate then smiles at the question. "It's hard not to notice a bounty from a member of the Whitebeard Pirates."

Nami nods as she thinks back on the rumors that she heard about Fire Fist Ace. "I heard that Ace's bounty is so high that all sorts of bounty hunters drool at the price. As the second division commander of the Whitebeard Pirates, he's feared all over the world too."

Vivi widens her eyes at this. "Really, you really think Blackbeard will be in Yuba?"

Nami shrugs as she finishes her plate. "We'll have to see when we get there."

Rose nods in agreement as she gets up. "Yea, until then we gotta keep moving. I can take those plates for you guys."

The other girls hand her their empty plates and watch her walk off. After she makes sure that they're cleaned, she returns them to Sanji's bag. Once she's done she looks back at Ace who's sitting alone. She softly frowns at him as she drifts into her thoughts about what's coming next. _*Now that the separation filler's done, it's only a matter of time until he leaves to go after Blackbeard. Since he knows more about what he's up against maybe he'll have a better chance. At least I hope so...*  
_  
She softly sighs at the thought of Ace leaving soon as she goes to keep Chopper, who's been eating in peace the entire time, company.

Meanwhile, nobody has noticed the bounty hunter on the distant rock that's been preparing his bazooka ever since he saw Ace. The hunter begins to smirk with his smoking pipe hanging from his teeth as he finishes loading his weapon. He looks through the small scope attached to the bazooka to make sure that he gets a clear shot.

Once he sees the Whitebeard Pirate in his line of sight, the bearded man couldn't stop his smirk from spreading. "Time to take your bounty First Fist Ace! Don't worry though, I don't wanna kill you. I have my pride as a bounty hunter after all."

He aims his weapon towards the rock that the freckled man's sitting on, then lights a match to set the ignition rope on fire. Once it's set, the bounty hunter keeps his focus on his target while ignoring his ostrich who's standing behind him.

When the bazooka's lit rope was starting to cause smoke, it fills the bird's nostrils he starts to sniffle. He couldn't take it anymore and sneezes onto the rope to put out the fire before it can set off the bazooka.

The bounty hunter however, didn't notice that the rope was no longer lit so he keeps aiming his bazooka towards his target.

As he waits for the bazooka that's never going to fire the Straw Hats continue to get ready for the next leg of their journey.

Nami has just finished putting out the fire before she dusts her hands off. "Alright guys, how are we on-?"

She cuts herself off when she sees Usopp, Sanji, Zoro and Luffy still arguing over breakfast. She twitches an eyebrow in irritation as she gets her fists ready. "That's enough!"

She whacks all her crewmates on the head in order to shut them up. Everyone of them falls on their faces while Nami places her hands on her hips. "Forget about your stupid fight. Just hurry and clean up so that we can leave."

The boys reluctantly agree as they stand up.

However, before Luffy does anything he looks at Zoro's unfinished food and sees that a piece of meat being lifted up by a thin fishing line that's barely visible. Luffy wasn't able to see the small line that's lifting the meat into the air as he stares at it in awe. "Awesome!"

"Oh no, he saw us!"

"Hurry big brother!"

Luffy widens his eyes at the young voices coming from the meat's direction as it starts moving away from them. "Whoa, the meat can talk!"

Nami quirks an eyebrow at Luffy's statement. "What are you talking about?"

Luffy ignores her question when he sees the meat being reeled in and weaving past the rocks. "Hey, come back meat!"

He jumps onto some of the smaller rocks and starts jumping after it from one rock to another.

"Luffy, come back!" Zoro calls out, but Luffy doesn't listen as he goes deeper into the terrain.

"COME BACK HERE MEAT!" The rest of the crew freezes at Luffy's yelling and watches him run off.

Chopper tilts his head in confusion as he watches his captain run off. "What happened?"

Rose widens her eyes when she recalls what comes next. "We have some company."

Chopper looks up in confusion as she tries to find Ace, but he's not in the campsite anymore. _*This is the episode where that bounty hunter and his sons show up! Ace must have found the kids right-*  
_  
She snaps out of it to the sound of a gunshot being fired in the distance. She and the others rush to the noise to see Ace standing on a  
small rock while two young boys nervously watch him from the ground.

The younger of the two brown haired boys hides behind his big brother in fear as he keeps the stolen meat in his hands.

The older boy stands in front of his brother with a pistol in his trembling hands that's still pointed at Ace. "H-he managed to burn off the bullet! Just how strong is he?!"

Usopp looks down at the burnt remains of the bullet in shock before looking at the kids. "What the hell happened? And who are these kids?"

The older boy ignores Usopp's questions and runs up in front of Ace's rock. "Please, we need your help."

Ace quirks an eyebrow at the request as the child keeps going. "There's someone I want you to find and catch! If you do it I'll pay you a million beli!"

The others start staring at the boy in confusion as the child clenches his fists. "I can't pay right now, but I will pay it when I grow up!"

The boy digs into his pocket and takes out a picture of the bounty hunter that's after Ace. "Please find this man! His name's Scorpion, he's a bounty hunter"

Ace picks up the photo and looks at the man curiously. "Did you say Scorpion?"

The boys slowly nod while the older brother speaks for both of them. "My brother and I followed him from the Badlands…"

Nami looks at the two boys in confusion. "Why are you guys chasing a bounty hunter?"

The two kids look at each other nervously to try to find the right thing to say. "Well…"

"Don't worry about it, I have business with him too." Ace says with everyone looking at him in shock.

Sanji quirks an eyebrow at the statement as he looks down at the photo. "What kind of business do you have with him?"

"The rumor I heard about Blackbeard being in Yuba. The full extent of it is that Blackbeard was defeated by a man named Scorpion there."

Usopp widens his eyes at this. "This guy defeated Blackbeard?!"

"That's the rumor anyway. I was planning to go to Yuba to confirm it, but if he comes to me then this'll be easier."

The younger brother looks at him in shock. "So you'll do it?!"

Ace nods with a small smile. "Yea, I'll do it."

The older boy quickly brightens up before he bows his head. "Thank you so much! My name's Dip and this is my younger brother Chip."

Vivi smiles at the introduction before she looks around. "We should still wait until Luffy comes back."

"I'll go search for him." Rose says as she starts flying to leave the group and a pair of totally shocked kids behind. _*Now that the kids are here, Scorpion shouldn't be too far behind. If I find him then I'll find Luffy.*  
_  
She continues flying over the terrain in order to search for Luffy and the bounty hunter while the others return to the camp to wait for them.

* * *

A few minutes passed since Scorpion ignited the line to his bazooka, and he is still waiting for it to fire. After a few more seconds of waiting, he realizes that something isn't right. "Wait, shouldn't it have fired by now?"

He looks over the bazooka to see that not only is the rope no longer lit, but it's been plucked from the bazooka to become his ostrich's lunch.

Scorpion watches in horror as his pet slurps up the rope that he's using. "You damn bird!"

He drops the bazooka and starts chasing after his bird for revenge.

On the ground below them though, Luffy just stopped running to catch his breath. "Damn, what happened to the meat?" He looks around to try to find the stolen meat, but there's no luck.

"WHY DID YOU EAT IT YOU STUPID BIRD?!"

Luffy looks up in confusion when he hears Scorpion yelling, but he doesn't see the comedic chase between the man and the ostrich. The only thing that he was able to witness, was the bazooka being kicked off the tall rock from all the running. Scorpion quickly dips the top half of his body in order to catch his weapon, but the bomb that was loaded into the bazooka falls out of its holster and starts hurdling towards Luffy.

"NO!" Scorpion looks at the falling bomb in horror then notices Luffy standing below them. "HEY BOY, RUN FOR IT! IF THAT BLOWS UP IT'LL TAKE HALF OF ALABASTA WITH IT!"

The bounty hunter watches Luffy not making a move as the bomb gets closer to him, so he jumps back to take cover. After a few seconds Scorpion pauses when he doesn't hear any kind of explosion. He looks over the edge to see both Luffy and the bomb are missing. "What the-?!"

"What's the matter?"

Scorpion jumps in surprise at Luffy's voice before he turn around to see Luffy standing behind him. "What the-?! How'd you get up here?! And what happened to the bomb?!"

"You mean this?" Luffy shows him the round black ball with purple dots all over it.

"What the hell?!" Scorpion jumps back in shock from the sight of his bomb and accidentally leans towards the edge. It was too late for him to recompose himself before he starts falling backwards off the edge. He manages to keep himself from falling by holding onto the edge with his legs while the rest of his body is dangling.  
Luffy chuckles at the man's predicament. "Shishishi, you're pretty funny."

"Just help me up!" Scorpion reaches his arm up in order for Luffy to grab him and pull him back up.

Once Scorpion's safely back on the rock, he grabs his telescope to see where his target went. "Where did he go?!"

He frantically searches for Ace, but he completely lost sight of him. "I can't play around now!"

He turns towards his ostrich and puts the telescope back in his bag. "Popo, we're heading over to where he was! Get everything ready!"

The ostrich nods as he helps Scorpion pack everything up.

Meanwhile, Rose is flying around the terrain in hopes of finding Luffy. She keeps scanning the area until she spots a familiar straw hat standing on top of a rock and watching Scorpion packing everything onto his ostrich.

She quickly descends towards them and floats just behind Luffy. "There you are Luffy."

The captain jumps in surprise from the familiar voice then turns around with a smile on his face. "Oh, hey Rose. What are you doing here?"

"Finding you, the others have been wondering where you went." She turns to the bounty hunter who's been too busy packing up to notice her. "Is this guy Scorpion?"

Scorpion widens his eyes at his name being said before he turns to the pair with a smile. "You're a fan?! That's wonderful, how would you kids like to see an epic battle?"

Luffy brightens up at the offer. "Yea, who's fighting?!"

"Me and a tough pirate. Come on, I'll bring you along."

Rose eagerly smiles at the fight she's about to watch. "Sounds good!" She uses her wind to carry the group off the rock and onto the ground.

Scorpion looks at her in shock before he gets onto his ostrich. "Neat trick kid, just follow us."

Rose nods while Luffy gets on the ostrich's back just before Popo takes them towards the direction of the camp.

The brunette flies beside them with a smile as she scans over the ostrich with fascination in her eyes. _*This is one awesome ostrich. He could be as fast as Eyelashes.*  
_  
She keeps staring at the ostrich in awe while Luffy looks around. "This is awesome!"

Scorpion starts snickering as he pays attention to the path they're on. "That's an understatement kid. You and the girl are going to see the world's greatest upcoming bounty hunter locked in battle!"

Rose grins at the fight she's going to witness, but stays silent while Luffy looks at him in confusion. "You're a bounty hunter?"

"Yup, I've been on so many epic adventures that you probably won't believe me! I've fought epic battles with everyone. From Double Barrel Danny to Hellbattler Luther and it always ends with them begging for their lives."

Luffy widens his eyes at the story before smiling widely. "Wow really?!"

"No, but someday it will be!" Scorpion begins laughing triumphantly at the dream he's about to realize.

"Oh, someday huh?" Luffy joins him in his laughter.

Rose chuckles at the story before she grins at the bounty hunter. "So, who are you fighting in today's epic battle?"

"I'm going after Fire Fist Ace! Once I take care of him the others will be a cinch!"

Luffy blinks at the statement before he chuckles. "You wanna beat Ace up?! That's funny."

"Hey now! Don't mock me! When I do something, I don't kid around!" He tightens his grip on the ostrich's reins as he steers him ahead.

"Men have to live for big ambitions! I have to show them that!"

Rose looks at him softly for she know who he's talking about but remains silent.

Luffy tilts his head at the statement and looks at him in confusion. "You have to show who?"

Scorpion doesn't answer his question, but instead he snaps the reins to make Popo go faster. "Enough talk! I'm coming for you Ace!"

"Whoa!" Luffy grips on his straw hat to make sure that it doesn't fall from the fast ride.

"Hey wait up!" Rose rushes to catch up to the speeding ostrich as they journey on towards the campsite.

* * *

Ace's group has just finished packing up and are now waiting for Rose and Luffy to come back.

Usopp looks to see Ace is scanning the picture of Scorpion again. "Hey Ace, do you really think this guy defeated Blackbeard?

Ace casually shrugs as he gives the picture one last look. "I'm not sure. The only way to know is to meet him in person."

Chip widens his eyes at the name Usopp called him and turns to the freckled man. "You're Ace?! As in Fire Fist Ace?!"

Ace nods at the question and hands them the photo. "That's right, why do you-?"

"THERE YOU ARE FIRE FIST!"

The group freezes at Scorpion's voice and turn to see Scorpion riding his ostrich with Luffy on his back while Rose is flying next to them.

The boys look at Scorpion in shock before they hide behind a rock to avoid being spotted. The crew doesn't notice the kids hiding as remain speechless in seeing their friends riding with the bounty hunter.

Ace however, has his attention on only the bounty hunter. "So you're Scorpion?"

The bounty hunter flinches at the serious look on the pirate's face. _*This is really Fire Fist Ace?!*  
_  
Luffy looks at the nervous man in confusion. "Hey, what's up?"

Scorpion quickly shakes his head. "Eh, nothing, I'm just getting ready!" He tries to regain his nerves before he turns back to Ace. _*What am I doing? I can't wimp out! There's no way I can give up. Not as long as they're waiting for me!*  
_  
He manages to harden his nerves before he scowls at the freckled man. "That's right, I'm Scorpion! I'm here to challenge you!"

Dip nervously looks over the rock he's hiding behind as he speaks up. "Don't be stupid. He's the real one."

His words weren't able to reach the bounty hunter, but they were able to reach the crewmembers. The group looks at them in confusion, but the kids don't say anything else.

Ace's eyes go from the kids to the bounty hunter before a smirk appears on his face. "I accept, let's fight. Luffy, Rose, get yourselves out of the way."

Rose doesn't hesitate as she lifts Luffy up alongside her and goes towards the others.

Luffy grins in excitement about the fight as they start landing near the crew. "Don't pull any punches Ace!"

"I wasn't planning to!"

Rose grins in pure excitement as she starts digging into her bag. _*Even though this is pretty one sided, seeing a fight like this is too awesome!*  
_  
She grabs her camera and goes to the side to get some good pictures as Ace and Scorpion's ostrich begin charging towards one another.

"HERE I COME FIRE FIST!" Scorpion pulls out a net launcher from his bag and aims it at his opponent. He fires the metal net towards the freckled pirate. However, just before the net can trap Ace he quickly blasts the net off him with his flames.

Scorpion stops his ostrich when the net lands on him and knocks him off the bird.

"Hot, hot!" He scrambles to get the hot net off of him while Popo kicks sand on him in order to help cool him down.

The kids look at the bounty hunter with worry in their eyes when they see Scorpion getting back up. He glares at Ace behind his sunglasses while the pirate's is waiting for him to make his move.

He smirks at his target as he gets up. "This wouldn't be fun if you were that easy to beat Fire Fist."

Ace returns the smirk when he sees that he has some fight in him. "Oh, looks like you're a real fighter."

"Our battle's just getting started! Popo, get the compressed extinguisher gun!"

The ostrich quickly complies to his orders as he takes the backpack weapon from his bag with his beak and gives it to his owner.

Scorpion wastes no time in assembling the target hose while pulling the pack filled with extinguisher foam on his back.

Sanji raises an eyebrow at the strange weapon. "What the hell kind of gun is that?"

Nami shrugs as she looks at the weapon with a blank expression. "Looks like an overgrown fire extinguisher."  
 _  
*More like a gun from Ghostbusters.*_ Rose chuckles at the comparison she made in her head as she got ready to take more photos.

"Get ready to be extinguished!" Scorpion fires the foam at Ace, but he quickly dodges.

The others look at the rock that was behind Ace in shock to see that Scorpion's shot was powerful enough to break through the rock. Scorpion keeps shooting at Ace, but he quickly jumps in order to dodge every shot.

Ace smirks at the attacks as he takes the offense and charges him. He side steps during his charge to dodge the foam shots fired at him until he makes it to the bounty hunter and punches him in the gut. Scorpion dry heaves at the rough punch as he clenches onto his stomach and topples over the edge of a sand dune.

The rest of the group looks at how the fight ended in disbelief of how it ended so abruptly.

Rose sighs as she puts the camera away. _*Poor guy never had a chance. Still, using a fire extinguisher on him was a clever idea.*_ She shrugs to herself as she rejoins the others.

Ace looks down at the collapsed bounty hunter at the bottom of the small dune with a small frown. "Looks like you really did lie about beating Blackbeard. You used his name to get me to show up didn't you?"

Scorpion groans from the pain as he struggles to get up. "That's right, I made up the whole thing about Blackbeard being here. Not too shabby of a plan huh?"

Ace casually watches as Scorpion sits up. "I'm not giving up though. Not until I beat you!"

"That's enough dad!"

Everyone looks at the kids in shock to see them running from their hiding spot and towards the bounty hunter.

Scorpion widens his eyes in shock to see his two sons sliding down the hill in order to reach their father. "Dip, Chip?! What are you two doing here?!"

Dip reaches their father first and grabs his arm. "We're here to bring you back dad! Please stop!"

Chip makes it to over to them with tears in his eyes. "You don't need to fight the world's greatest battle!"

Scorpion recalls the night before he left them, so that he can prove to his sons that they can dream big even no matter what. He softly smiles at his sons as he pats both of their heads. "Don't be silly. I'm the world's greatest bounty hunter. I've fought epic battles from Double Barrel Danny to Hellbattler Luther and they all begged for their lives."

"Or so you plan right?" Chip says with his father flinching at the truth.

Scorpion sighs in defeat as he lowers his head. "You found me out huh? That's right, I'm a terrible liar and a terrible father."

The others look over the edge of the dune silently as Scorpion's lips move into a smile. "But, there's one thing that is true! Even the most insignificant person can challenge one of this world's toughest if he tries hard enough! That's what I want to show you. That men need to have dreams in their hearts. Ones that you won't give up on. Because then you know that you've had a life worth living."

The boys widen their eyes at the explanation as he takes his hands off his sons heads. "But, there's no way to show that without putting my life on the line."

He forces himself to stand up. "As long as you keep standing, you'll always find a way to fulfill your dreams. Now, watch your father's unconquerable spirit!"

The boys watch in shock as their father starts walking up the wall of the dune in Ace's direction. He stops halfway up the slope then calls out to his bird. "Popo, the bazooka!"

Popo quickly brings him the bazooka then runs towards the group to avoid the line of fire.

Scorpion takes the bazooka in his hands and aims it at Ace. "This is the end Fire Fist!"

He lights the new ignition rope that's attached to the bazooka up just before Dip and Chip cling to their father from behind.

"Stop dad!" Chip says as he starts tearing up.

Scorpion looks down at his boys in shock. "Boys?!"

Dip holds onto his father tighter in hopes to reason with his dad. "Please stop! We won't give up on our dreams!"

Chip nods as he keeps a hold of his dad's overalls. "I'm sorry for doubting you! Please, we don't want you to lose you!"

"We love you dad!" Both brothers say simultaneously.

Scorpion can only stay stoic for a moment before he drops the bazooka and turns around to hug his boys. "I love you too!"

The others watch in shock as the bazooka somersaults down the dune and fires straight up to the tall rock next to it. The shot blows up the side of the rock and causes the debris to fall towards Scorpion and his sons.

Rose picks the family up with her wind and starts bringing them towards them, but the rocks are falling too quickly for them to completely avoid it. Luffy got ready to act, but Ace was faster and blasted the rocks with his fire fist. He manages to destroy not only the debris that was about to hit the family but also the whole rock behind him.

The family stares at the burnt rock in awe while Rose gently sets them down near the others.

Scorpion quickly snaps out of it and kneels in front of his sons. "Are you two ok?!"

The boys quickly nod before they tackle their father in a hug.

Scorpion tears up at the affection before he wraps his arms around his boys. "Thank you for coming to get me… What do you say we go home?"

"Yea…" The boys quickly nod as they refuse to let go.

The rest of the group grins at the touching moment when Scorpion leaves the embrace and turns to Ace. "Sorry about luring you out like this. I can give you some real information about where Blackbeard can be to make it up to you."

Ace widens his eyes at this before he widely smiles at him. "That would be great!"

"The last I heard he's heading out west. I'm not sure what he's planning to do there though."

"This is still really helpful. Thank you very much."

"No problem." Scorpion gives him a small smile before he looks down at his kids. "Let's go home boys."

The boys quickly nod, but before they head out Chopper runs up to them. "Wait, we need to take a look at your injuries Scorpion! Come with me!"

Chopper leads him to a spot where he can get to work on healing the bounty hunter while the others relax.

Rose looks at Ace softly for a moment before looking at his watermelon colored bag. _*Today really is the last day he's here…*  
_  
She quietly sighs to herself but stops when she sees Ace and Luffy happily chatting away. She uses the photo opportunity to her advantage as she grabs her camera and sneaks a picture of the two brothers. She grins in satisfaction as she joins the others in waiting for Chopper to finish treating Scorpion's injuries.

* * *

It was nearly sunset when Chopper finished treating Scorpion's injuries and the group has bid farewell to Scorpion's family. Now that Ace has learned that Blackbeard wasn't in Yuba, he decided that it was time for him to say his goodbyes as well.

"Are you really leaving Ace?" Chopper asks as he and the others watch Ace finish preparing to leave.

Ace nods with small smile as he flings his bag over his shoulder. "Yea, since Blackbeard's not in Yuba I have no reason to be here. Following Scorpion's lead will be my best bet in finding him."

He digs into his pocket and tosses something to his brother. Luffy catches the object in his hands then looks to see that it's a folded piece of paper.

"Always hang on to that Luffy." Ace says with his little brother looking at it in confusion.

"Huh? It's just a scrap of paper."

"That 'scrap of paper' will bring you and me together again someday."

Rose softly frowns at the paper, but says nothing as she watches Luffy stare at it.

He unfolds it to see that it's completely blank. "This thing can bring us back together?"

"Yup, so keep it close."

"Ok."

Ace grins in satisfaction before he bows to the others. "It's natural for a big brother to worry about his little brother. He can be a lot to handle, but please take good care of him."

"Of course." The rest of Luffy's crew bows back to him.

When Ace straightens up, he looks at Luffy with a serious look on his face. "Luffy, the next time we meet we'll both be top pirates."

Luffy smile stretches across his face as he nods. "Yeah, I'll see you at the top."

Ace softly grins at him when the group hears the sound of loud noise from above. They look up to search for the source to see that it's the sound of a flock of white birds flying over them.

When Luffy turns his attention away from the birds, he widens his eyes to see that Ace vanished. "Huh? Where did he go?"

The others follow his gaze to see that the Whitebeard pirate has completely disappeared.

"Looks like he left." Zoro says with a grin.

Sanji smiles at the departure while he takes a cigarette and lighter from his pocket. "So that was Fire Fist Ace huh?"

Luffy looks down at the piece of paper in his hand then puts it in his pocket. "Yea."

Usopp quirks an eyebrow at his captain's quiet answer. "You ok Luffy?"

Luffy nods with a large smile. "Yea, like Ace said we'll see each other again. I'm sure of it."

The group pauses when they feel a cold breeze, and turns to see Rose staring at the spot Ace was standing at with her hood and unruly bangs hiding her sadness.

Luffy quickly grins at the cold wind without seeing her facial expression. "Awesome, you made cold wind again!"

Rose cancels out the breeze then turns to the others with a smile. "Oh, I did?"

"Yea, what made it cold?"

"Not telling."

Luffy widens his eyes at her refusal to answer him. "What?! You shouldn't hide that from your captain!"

Rose groans at his stubbornness and scowls at him. "I'm not joining you!"

"I refuse your refusal!"

"And I-"

Nami cuts her off by whacking both her and Luffy on the head. "We're not going through this again! Until we reach Yuba I don't want to hear another word about this, got it?!"

The pair quickly nods, in order to avoid Nami's wrath, as the crew goes back on their journey to Yuba to make up for lost time.

Meanwhile, Ace manages to travel about a mile away from where his brother was before he goes into his bag for his canteen. When he looks inside, he stops when he sees a piece of paper inside. He grabs it and widens his eyes when he sees notes on Blackbeard's power and some of his crew mates made on both sides, except at the bottom back of it where a note is written.  
 **  
Hey Ace,  
** **  
Here's everything I know about Blackbeard's power just in case something slipped. This also has some information I picked up about his crew mates. You never know if you need it right?  
** **  
Anyway, good luck going after Blackbeard and thanks again for the training. If we ever meet again after you win then let's have a sparring match. I promise to give you a good fight the next time around! You have to keep your promise though and be careful! If I find out that you lost then I'll have to consider kicking your butt!  
** **  
Until either time comes,  
** **  
Rose  
**  
Ace sweat drops at the small, poorly made, drawing of a hand showing the peace sign next to her name. _*She's just as weird as Luffy… Still, these notes are really impressive. Is she that worried about me losing?*  
_  
He looks over the notes with curiosity in his eyes as he wonders why she's so serious in helping him until he remembers her telling him one of the reasons why she's helping him. _*"Losing you would break Luffy's heart, and that's the last thing we both want."*  
_  
Ace softly grins at the memory before he puts the paper back in his bag. _*If she cares about Luffy this much then maybe he does have a chance with her. Good luck Lu.*  
_  
He slings the bag over his shoulder then continues his journey with his cherished memories of his time with Luffy and his crew keeping him company along the way.

TO BE CONTINUED


	18. Chapter 18

For the first time in a while, the crew's journey has been going on without a hitch as everyone continues travelling through the blistering heat. From time to time throughout the day, Rose manages to create a small gust of wind from her body to help keep the crew cool.

After the fifth gust of wind she creates, she stops herself and looks down at Chopper who's riding on the sled Zoro's dragging. "How are you holding up doc?"

He gives her a hoof's up while he stays on the sled. "I'll be ok, thanks for the wind. It's been helping."

"Anytime." She softly grins at him as she keeps walking.

Luffy turns to her with pleading eyes. "Can you make your wind colder like bef-?"

He was cut off by a kick to the head by Sanji. "Don't complain when she's helping us idiot!"

Luffy rubs his head while Rose chuckles. "Sorry Luffy, but it's easier to make my wind like this."

"Aww, ok…" Luffy accepts the excuse as they keep going.

Rose grins at how things are going as she looks up at the afternoon sky. _*Looks like things are going smoothly. If I try to force my cold wind out the others could figure out what emotion it makes, so I shouldn't take advantage of it. At least my normal wind can help them.*_

She keeps a small grin on her face at the fact that she's being useful as they keep walking.

"How much longer until we reach Yuba?" Usopp asks as he uses a walking stick to keep himself from collapsing.

Vivi looks through the map as she's riding on Eyelashes' back in order to figure out the length of their journey. "If we keep going at this rate, we should be there by nightfall."

Luffy groans at this as he's straggling behind. "Seriously? That'll take forever..."

Rose pauses at the complaint, when she remembers the plan she made to help everyone go through the desert faster, and mentally scolds herself for forgetting. _*Crap, I should've suggested it this morning! Now's the perfect time for it!*_

She stops walking and digs through her bag to get what she needs.

Nami looks back, to see that Rose's stopped walking, and looks at her in confusion. "What are you doing Rose?"

"Getting ready for an experiment I had planned to make everyone's trip easier."

The others stop walking and look at the wind girl in confusion as she's pulling out the folded, large, slightly thick sheet that she's been using as a blanket.

Usopp raises an eyebrow at the sheet as he watches her unfold it. "How's a blanket going to help us?"

"Like this." She tosses the sheet up into the air and uses her wind to catch it, so that it's lying flat on the gust of wind just a few feet off the ground. Once she's satisfied with the amount of wind she's using, she hops onto the sheet, and sits down cross legged with a large smile. "Anyone up for a flying carpet ride?"

"AWESOME!" Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper look at the ride with stars in their eyes as they hop on.

"What a wonderful idea Rose-chwan!" Sanji says as he twirls towards the sheet and takes a seat with his legs dangling over the edge.

Zoro looks at the excited group blankly. "That's your big experiment? Why are you trying this now anyway?"

Rose casually shrugs, as she shifts to make sure that there's enough room, while she uses enough wind to hold them up. "Didn't account for Ace joining us when I thought of this. There's enough room for one more if you want in."

Zoro looks at the shifty ride with hesitance for a moment before he reluctantly climbs aboard while Nami and Vivi stay on Eyelashes.

Nami quirks an eyebrow at the odd mode of transportation as Rose manages to move the floating sheet towards them. "So this is why you got that large sheet? Wouldn't it be easier to just send everyone flying?"

Rose focuses on lifting the sheet, so that they're at eye level with the girls, and shakes her head. "It's actually a lot easier for me to focus on one large object than a group of smaller ones. Besides, flying like this is more badass."

Nami sweat drops at the last comment. _*Why am I not surprised?*_

Vivi looks at the large ride worriedly as she remembers how Rose collapsed after she made their sand sled fly. "Are you sure you can handle carrying everyone like this? You remember what happened with the sand sled don't you?"

Rose nods while she keeps an easy going smile on her face. "Relax, I'll be fine. I was still recovering from fighting Ace and the birds that day. I'll let you know when I get too tired, so let's get going before the sun goes down."

She flies the sheet ahead before another word of concern can be spoken. Eyelashes widens his eyes at the fast moving sheet before he runs to catch up with them.

Usopp grins in excitement as he looks around from his seat. "Wow, this is amazing!"

Luffy grins in excitement as he holds his hat down to make sure that it doesn't fly off from the fast ride. "Yea, this is the best! Thanks Rose!"

Rose nods with a grin as she keeps her eyes on the cloth. "My pleasure, at this rate we'll reach Yuba in no time."

Sanji grins at her with hearts in his eyes. "Just what you'd expect from Rose-chan! As amazing as ever!"

Zoro rolls his eyes at Sanji's excitement as he stares out at the desert. "At least this is more useful than those breezes she made."

Sanji twitches an eyebrow at the poorly made compliment as he glares at the swordsman. "She's been a lot more helpful than you, you lazy moss head!"

Zoro furrows his eyebrows at the insult before returning the chef's glare. "What was that you curly-?!"

"If you two start fighting then I'm kicking you both off the ride!" Rose says causing both pirates to stiffen up before they settle down.

She nods in satisfaction as she makes sure that the sheet's flying at a good pace when Eyelashes catches up to them. She gives the running camel a sideways glance to see that he's making sure that he's running ahead of them. When she flies a little faster, so that they're at the same pace, Eyelashes moves faster to get ahead.

 _*What the hell?!*_ She goes at his pace one more time which causes Eyelashes to run ahead at top speed.

Vivi widens her eyes at how fast Eyelashes is going as she holds onto Nami. "Whoa, Eyelashes slow down!"

The camel doesn't listen to her as he runs ahead while he yells out to the others.

Chopper widens his eyes at what the camel just said then translates for the others. "He said that 'there's no way an overgrown rag can be faster than me! I'll make sure we don't lose you guys on the way to Yuba this time, so take your time!'"

Rose freezes at the challenge before she holds onto the sheet under her with a devilish smirk on her face. "He did huh? Well if that pervert wants a race then he's got one! Hang on to something tight boys!"

The boys widen their eyes in shock as she makes the blanket fly faster to begin the race between wind and camel. Chopper gets sent flying backwards from the fast flight, but clings onto Sanji's face to keep himself from falling with the chef being too busy hanging onto the cloth to pry him off. Usopp screams in fright as he almost falls off, but he grabs onto Zoro at the last second and clings onto his back for dear life. Zoro groans in annoyance at the additional weight as he holds onto the ride.

Luffy however, is the only guy enjoying himself as he wraps his arms around Rose, to hold onto her tightly, while he laughs at the adventure. "Shishishi, keep it up Rose!"

Rose immediately blushes at the arms around her waist then turns to Luffy. "I didn't mean cling to- AH!"

She and the guys yell in surprise as the sheet starts stumbling until she concentrates on her wind again.

Once she makes the ride stable, she sighs in relief then looks straight ahead while she tries her best to ignore the arms around her. _*Crap, why am I still not used to his hugs yet?! Can't let myself get too flustered or we'll end up crash landing!*_

She keeps her gaze on the horizon while she fights off her blush until it leaves a light pink tint on her cheeks.

Luffy looks at the blushing girl in confusion as he shows no signs of letting go. "Hey, are you ok? Why were we shaking before?"

She shakes her head while she keeps her face away from him. "J-just some turbulence! Doesn't mean I'm gonna lose to a freaking camel though! Look, we're starting to gain on him!"

She points to the camel that's half a mile away with everyone who can see following her gaze. Eyelashes doesn't give in though, as he runs as fast as he can for what feels like miles until Rose starts gaining on him.

When the group flies next to them, Nami and Vivi widen their eyes at Rose and the boys' peculiar holds during their flight.

Nami remains quiet as she smirks at Rose and Luffy's state. When Rose takes a glance at Nami's smirk, her blush starts to get stronger before she forces herself to look ahead. _*Saying anything will just encourage her. Just focus on the race!*_

Vivi blinks at the sight then looks to see both Rose and Eyelashes starting to tire themselves out. "Don't overdo it guys!"

Neither racer listens to her word of warning as they continuing going neck and neck until Rose manages to take the lead.

Eyelashes strains to run faster, but it wasn't enough as Rose creates a new lead. Once she's feels that they have a long enough lead, where they can still be seen by the girls, she starts to slow down so that he can catch up, but faster than when they're walking.

Luffy looks back at the camel that's small from where they are and smiles in victory. "ALRIGHT, WE WIN!"

Usopp looks back and snickers at the frustrated camel. "The pervy camel challenged the wrong captain!"

Zoro looks to see that the sniper's still attached to his back so he shakes him off. "Get the hell off already!"

"You too Chopper!" Sanji says as he pries him off his face and catches his breath.

Rose looks down at Luffy's arms, that are still wrapped around her, and turns to him. "You can let go too Luffy, I'm not gonna go that fast anymore."

Luffy blinks at the request as he realizes that he's still holding onto her. "Oh, ok." He takes his arms back as if he did nothing strange.

Sanji widens his eyes at what he just heard, and starts glaring at his captain. "You had your arms around her you-?!"

"My 'no fighting or you're off the ride' rule still stands Sanji!" Rose says as she's looks back at him to show that she's serious.

Sanji stops himself from kicking Luffy, once he sees her face, then sighs in defeat. "Yes Rose-chan…"

Rose nods at his compliance as she looks back to see that Eyelashes is now speed walking towards them in order to catch up. She slows down a little more so that Eyelashes can reach them then turns her attention back to the desert ahead of her. "Looks like Eyelashes learned his lesson. I'm gonna stay at this pace so that he and the girls can catch up."

The others silently agree as they look back at their companions and continue to enjoy the ride.

As Rose keeps flying the sheet she begins to silently pant from exhaustion, but shows no sign of stopping the ride. _*That race is starting to take its toll on me... Just a little while longer. I wanna see how much farther I can last.*_

She continues to strain her strength as she keeps the sheet flying with Eyelashes less than half a mile behind them. As Eyelashes continues to get closer, Rose continues to grow more weary.

Luffy looks around his surroundings then sees Rose's tired face and widens his eyes. "Hey, are you ok?!"

Rose pauses at the question then turns to see the guys turning their attention to her. She quickly puts on a reassuring smile while she waves her hands dismissively. "Why the worried faces guys? Relax, we still have some time before-"

She stops talking when she feels her nose starting to twitch. "Oh crap, not again!"

The others look at her in confusion as she grabs the cloth and starts landing, but she couldn't stop herself from sneezing and sending herself flying. During her flight, she accidentally keeps her grip on the sheet, and sweeps it from under the guys as she breaks her concentration on her wind.

"AAH!" The guys yell in shock as they free fall and land in a dog pile on the ground.

They struggle to get off one another while Rose lands in a tumble on the ground and manages to wrap herself up to the point where only her head is visible.

She groans to herself as she stays down for another minute to collect her thoughts. _*Looks like I found some bugs that I need to work on, but that's what tests are for. Can't say that wasn't awesome though.*_

Rose chuckles to herself as she sits up while Nami and Vivi ride up to them.

"Are you all alright?!" Vivi asks as the boys manage to untangle themselves.

Luffy nods with a toothy grin. "Yea, that was awesome!" He looks around to see Rose shaking the sheet off of her. "You ok?"

Rose nods with a smile as she puts the sheet back in the bag and gets up. "Yea, that was fun. Besides some little quirks it looks like the ride was a success."

"SAY THAT WHEN YOU DON'T DROP US!" Usopp and Zoro yell out at the same time as they dust the sand off them.

Nami sighs at all the craziness then looks back at how far they went. "At least that stunt moved things along. We made some good timing."

Rose smiles in satisfaction as she straps on her backpack. "I can try again after I come up with a way to fix the landing if you guys want?"

Chopper, Sanji and Luffy eagerly nod while the other boys reluctantly agree, then continue their journey on foot for the rest of the day.

* * *

As the sun begins to set for the day, the group shows no signs in stopping to take a break. As the crew keeps walking, Vivi widens her eyes at the small buildings coming up ahead. "I think that's Yuba over there!"

The others pause at the announcement and look at the distant town that they're approaching.

"Are you sure this is Yuba Vivi?!" Nami asks as the town becomes more clear in view.

Vivi nods with a large smile as she looks at the town. "I'm sure of-" She loses her smile when they reach the town to see that it's half buried in the sand. "No…"

Zoro scowls at the dry town as he scans the area. "Damn, it's no different than Erumalu…"

Vivi couldn't take her blue eyes off the village as she remembers Erumalu. "The oasis has been swallowed up by the sand too…"

Rose looks at her softly for a moment then looks around the wasteland. _*Dammit, I'm starting to hate Crocodile more than I did when I first read about him. Where were those rebels actually based again? Doesn't matter now, at least we're back on track...*_

The wind girl quietly sighs to herself before she looks to see sand flying up from a hole that's half a mile from them. "Hey guys, I think someone lives here."

The others look at the direction she's staring at and rush to the hole to see a skinny old man digging in the hole.

The old man doesn't spare them a glance as he keeps digging. "You're all travelers? You all must be tired after that long journey. I'm afraid the town's dried up, but we have plenty of inns that you can rest in."

Vivi moves her hood so that her face is a little more concealed before she speaks up. "Excuse me, we heard that the rebel army is based here. Do you know where they are?"

The villager stops digging and turns around with a furious look in his eyes. "You want to speak to the rebellion?"

He suddenly throws his shovel at them along with any sticks that he can grab. "DON'T TELL ME YOU'RE OUT TO JOIN THOSE ROTTEN REBELS!"

The group flinches at the flying objects as they dodge the shovel and sticks.

Usopp quickly dodges the flying shovel in shock. "What the hell?!"

Once the old man runs out of things to throw, he sighs in exasperation and climbs out of the hole. "The rebels aren't here anymore..."

Everybody, except for Rose, drops their jaws at the news. "What?!"

He nods as he grabs his shovel and goes back to his hole to dig. "This town's been through a lot of sandstorms. With all the sand eating away at the oasis, along with no rain, it's led to the dried up town you see before you. When the town completely dried up, the rebels couldn't work here anymore. I was told they moved to Katorea."

Vivi gasps at the news. "The rebels went to Katorea?!"

"Is Katorea close to us?!" Nami asks, but the princess can only shake her head with a look of defeat.

"Katorea's next to Nanohana, the town that we first visited…"

The group looks at her in utter shock. "Are you serious Vivi?!"

The elder stops digging as soon as he heard the princess' name. "Did you kids say Vivi?!"

The others jolt at the question but they quickly shake their heads. Luffy nervously steps up in front of the group while he waves his hands around. "Listen old guy, Vivi's not a princess!"

"DON'T TELL HIM THAT!" Zoro and Sanji yell out as they whack their captain on the head.

The old man ignores the scuffle as he climbs out of the hole again to get a closer look at the nervous princess. "It's really you Vivi-chan! I'm so glad you're alive! Don't you recognize me?!"

Vivi takes a closer look at the thin old man's face, then widens her eyes when a name comes up in her head. "Mr. Toto?!"

The old man grins at being remembered with tears welling up in his eyes. "That's right!"

Vivi looks at him in utter shock as she remembers how chubby he was when she last saw him as a little girl. "I can't believe it!"

Chopper looks from the villager and the princess in confusion. "You know him Vivi?"

"He's the father of my childhood friend. They both helped build Yuba from the ground up years ago."

Toto places his hands on her shoulders while he allows his tears to flow down his cheeks. "Listen to me Vivi-chan, I believe in your father! I know he wouldn't betray this country! The majority of the country does as well!"

"Y-you believe us?" Tears begin to well up in Vivi's eyes at her friend's kind words.

Toto can only nod before he falls onto his knees. "The rebels won't listen though! They almost have enough power to overtake us! "

The group can only remain silent as they watch him silently weep.

Vivi looks at him softly for a moment before she grabs a handkerchief from her pocket and hands it to Mr. Toto. "Here Mr. Toto."

Mr. Toto lifts his head to see the handkerchief, and widens his eyes when he sees her smile.

"It'll be alright, we'll stop the rebellion."

He starts sniffling at her kindness before he takes the handkerchief to wipe his tears. "Yes, thank you… I insist that you and your friends rest here for the night. I can show you an inn that you can all use."

He stands up and leads the group over to an inn. "I'll leave you to settle in. If you need anything, let me know."

"Thank you very much Mr. Toto." Vivi says before Mr. Toto leaves to let the group settle in for the evening.

* * *

After Sanji prepared dinner for the group and Mr. Toto, most of the group gets ready to settle in for the night.

"Alright guys, great work today! We deserve a good rest!" Usopp says with a large smile, but his smile quickly fades when a pillow hits his face courtesy of Zoro.

"You're acting like you did something."

Chopper chuckles at the throw, but stays out of the pillow fight while Usopp grabs a pillow.

"Like I could do anything you jerk! I'm not a monster like you guys!" The sniper throws the pillow back at Zoro then grabs another one for the reindeer. "And I wouldn't be laughing, you win the award for the laziest traveler!" He throws the pillow at him, but before it can hit him Rose uses her wind to throw it back at him.

"Knock it off Usopp." Rose says as she gets her pillow ready for another attack.

Chopper quickly nods as he grabs his own pillow. "Yea, it's not my fault I can't stand the heat!"

"Umm Sanji, that's my bed." The group stops their argument to Vivi's complaint and looks to see her bed being occupied by Sanji.

The chef lifts the cover for her with a carefree smile on his face. "I know, I just figured that you'd want some company ton-"

He was cut off by a pillow to the face courtesy of Usopp. "The reward for biggest pervert goes to Sanji."

Rose, Chopper and Zoro chuckle at the display while the chef gets up and glares at the boys. "Oi, you wanna fight?"

He quickly grabs a pillow and gets off the bed to commence the pillow fight between the group. Nami huffs at the childish fight as she tries to ignore it until a stray shot hits her head. "DON'T YOU GUYS KNOW THE MEANING OF THE WORD 'QUIET'?!"

She quickly joins the fray while Vivi stays out of it even when a pillow hits her. The princess caresses her cheek where the pillow struck her then softly smiles at the scuffle before heading to bed.

Rose takes a few of the hits before she takes the chaos to her advantage and slips outside. Once she knows that she's safely outside, she looks through the window and chuckles at the new experience she had with them. _*Man these guys are fun. Wait, Luffy's not there, is he at the hole already?*_

She goes closer to the edge of Mr. Toto's hole to see Luffy sitting in Mr. Toto's ditch while the old man's digging.

"How do you stand living here without any water?" Luffy asks as he watches the old man dig.

Mr. Toto doesn't spare him a glance as he keeps focusing on the hole below him. "The oasis is still alive. It's just buried under the sand we got from the sandstorms, but it still lives on. Yuba's not so weak that it can lose to some mere sand I just need to dig it back up and the oasis will be good as new. The last thing I'm going to do is lose faith in the land I was given to by the king…"

Luffy stares at the old man intently for a moment before he starts digging a hole with his bare hands. "Alright then, let's dig!"

He starts digging his own hole right next to Mr. Toto's but he's sending it flying into the old man's hole.

The elder widens his eyes at the flying sand coming his way. "Hey wait, don't throw your sand into my hole!"

Luffy tilts his head at his complaint. "Huh? You said that you wanted to dig a hole."

"Um, yes that's right, but you're throwing your sand into my hole. That just defeats the purpose of digging in the first place."

The rubber man looks at him in thought for a moment before he nods. "I get it, it's a mystery hole!"

"No it's not! Just throw your sand at the other side!"

"Oh, ok!" Luffy does as he's told and starts throwing the sand he's dug up at the opposite direction.

The old man softly grins at the hard working young man before he gets back to work on his hole.

Rose looks over at the two men, that are digging themselves into deep holes, and grins at their work ethic. She looks back at the inn, where the others are sleeping soundly, and contemplates her options. _*I can't go to sleep when I know they're working hard like this…*_

She sees a spare shovel on the side of one of the buildings then grabs onto it, and sneaks close to the boys' holes to start digging her own oasis. Neither boys notice her working alongside them as they focus on their own jobs.

As a few hours pass, Mr. Toto takes a breather then looks in Luffy's hole to see that the boy fell asleep in his ten foot hole. The old man softly grins at him then freezes then he sees the third hole in the corner of his eye.

He takes a look inside and widens his eyes when he sees Rose fast asleep in the hole that's half as deep as Luffy's. _*_ _When did she get here?!*_

He looks over the sleeping kids and couldn't stop the proud smile that grew on his face. _*Vivi-chan's made some good friends.*_

He goes into Luffy's hole carries him to the inn to rest with his friends, then he does the same for Rose before he returns to his ditch for the rest of the night.

* * *

 _The sound of a baby's crying echoes throughout the pizza restaurant as the child's mother tries to calm him down at their table._

 _"Hey come on Brian. It's ok." She lightly bounces the baby boy over her shoulder while she gently pats his back to burp him._

 _The baby keeps crying though, as he looks around the small restaurant, but stops when he sees a sixteen year old girl clumsily juggling two tomatoes from behind the counter._

 _Rose continues to awkwardly juggle the fruits while she makes silly faces to stop his crying. Brian starts giggling at the display before he finally burps and relaxes._

 _Rose chuckles at the adorable child as she loses track of the tomatoes until they break onto both shoulders of her T-shirt, that she's wearing over her long sleeved shirt._

 _Timothy giggles at the show as he returns to the counter from cleaning some of the empty tables and hands her some napkins. "Good job getting the baby to stop crying."_

 _Rose chuckles at the compliment as she grabs the napkins and wipes the tomato chunks off her. "Thanks, looks like I can use some practice though. Don't tell your mom I broke those tomatoes."_

 _"Relax, I won't. Hey, did you fill out the application she gave you yet?"_

 _The pale girl tenses up at the reminder of the application Naomi gave her last week to become an official employee, and shakes her head. "Sorry, not yet…"_

 _Timothy sighs as he sees some of the families leaving, and grabs a bin to start collecting the dishes. "Please do it soon. Mom's getting pissed that it's taking so long."_

 _Rose raises an eyebrow at the complaint. "But I'll still be paid in cash right? So why the need for the application?"_

 _"We wanna know more about the employee that lasted this long."_

 _"Huh? I've only been here like four months."_

 _"Exactly!"_

 _Rose blinks at what he just said, but one look at his face shows that he's serious. *I know Naomi's scary, but seriously?*_

 _She snaps out of her thought and chuckles at the situation. "Still, is the application really necessary? Things are just fine the way they are."_

 _Timothy pouts at her stubbornness as he puts some plates in the bin. "It's necessary when you barely say anything about yourself… We don't even know your birthday…"_

 _"January tenth."_

 _The brown haired boy widens his eyes at the answer then looks at her in pure shock. "What?! That was like a month ago! Wait, you worked that day too! Why didn't you say anything?!"_

 _Rose looks to see that the mother and baby, who are the only customers left in the restaurant, are paying them no mind so she shrugs at the question. "No one asked. Besides, it's just like any other day."_

 _The older boy gasps at the statement as he puts the bin on the table. "How can you say that?! It's your birthday! What about your family, didn't they want you to celebrate with them?!"_

 _Her mood starts to drop, as she remembers the fight she had with her foster family on her birthday, but she brushes off the memory with a smile. "Relax, we managed to celebrate like usual. Work didn't affect it."_

 _Timothy barely calms his dramatics as he looks at her with large, sympathetic, eyes behind his glasses. "But still, it was your sixteenth birthday right? That's really special... You should've said something so that mom and I could've done something for you..."_

 _She sweat drops at the sympathetic look he's giving her and has no idea on how to respond. *Wow, he's starting to remind me of Tamaki Suoh.*_

 _She sighs at his distress then rubs the back of her head. "Well, I wasn't there for your birthday this year either right? Then we'll celebrate them when they come again. By the way, when's your birthday?"_

 _Timothy's depression quickly washes away and gets replaced with a large smile. "My birthday's March twentieth! You don't forget mine and I won't forget yours!"_

 _"Deal." Rose grins at his enthusiasm as she watches him scurry into the kitchen with the dish bin._

 _She keeps the grin on her face as she waves off the baby that's being carried out of the restaurant by his mother. Once she's alone, she goes to the newly empty table to collect the plates. *This job really is great. I think I can manage with this until I get out of this world. Still, that application wants family contact info. There's no way I can put Rick in there...*_

 _She sighs to herself as she tries to come up with a way to keep her personal problems quiet from her friends. *Well, it's a slim chance those three will find the place, so they won't meet Naomi. I'll just put mom and dad's information there.*_

 _She nods to herself as she puts the plate in the second bin behind the counter when the door opens. She quickly puts on a smile while she turns to greet the new customers. "Welcome to-"_

 _She quickly stops herself when her high school bullies Carrie and Peggy, who practically worship her foster sisters, look at her in shock._

 _Rose mirrors their look of shock as she screams in her head. *OF ALL THE FREAKING RESTAURANTS IN THIS CITY, THESE BITCHES HAD TO CHOOSE THIS ONE?!*_

 _Carrie snaps out of it then gives her a large mocking smile. "You actually did something normal like get a job?! This is great, this means there's hope for you to stop being a freak!"_

 _Rose snaps out of it from the false compliment, and scowls at her. "Don't get your panties in a wad. I only come here to help out sometimes. Wait, if getting a job is what normal people do, then doesn't that make you the freak?"_

 _Carrie loses her smile at the insult then turns around to leave. "Not when it's at a place that would hire a comet freak. We shouldn't eat here, come on Peggy."_

 _She starts heading to the door, but stops when her friend isn't moving. "Peggy?"_

 _The dark skinned girl looks around the room before turning to her friend. "Hey Carrie, didn't Marie and Laura say that Rose has been acting weirder than usual? You think this place could be why?"_

 _Rose twitches at the question, but doesn't say a thing while Carrie notices her reaction._

 _She smirks at the freckled girl as she takes her Iphone from her purse. "So that's how it is. Wonder what the twins would say about this? I should call them over so they can have a look-"_

 _"Don't you dare!" Rose practically growls at them while both girls snicker at her situation._

 _Carrie keeps a small smirk on her face as she puts the phone away and approaches the counter. "Don't worry, this'll be our little secret. Of course, it'll cost you. For today, let's start with free lunch."_

 _Rose keeps her fists clenched from under the counter as she contemplates her options. *Dammit what now? I can't let Naomi and Timothy get involved in this. I can't let Carrie call those two either… I'll pay for lunch with today's salary and beat the crap out of them later…*_

 _She keeps a scowl on her face as she grabs her pad and pen. "Fine..."_

 _Peggy claps her hands in excitement. "Great, then I'll have a slice of pepperoni pizza topped with parmesan and a small diet coke."_

 _Carrie looks over her options on the large menu above her head. "I'll have a plain, and if you can put parmesan on it that'll be great, along with a small diet coke. Make them both to go."_

 _Rose nods as she writes down the orders when Timothy walks out of the kitchen._

 _When he sees the scowl on his friend's usually smiling face, he immediately knows that something's wrong. "Hey, are you ok?"_

 _Rose snaps out of it to her friend's high voice then gives him a smile to ease his worries. "Yea, I'll be fine. I got the dishes from the last family, can you get them?"_

 _She points to the plates in the bin that are hidden behind the counter. He looks at her curiously for a moment before he picks up the bin. "Alright, you got the new customers?"_

 _"Yup, no problem." She says as she watches him leave the room._

 _Carrie blinks at her exchange with the chubby boy before she giggles. "Now what's this? Hiding a boyfriend too?"_

 _"Nothing of the sort. He's my friend." Rose says as she takes the smile off her freckled face, and pulls the slices from their respective pies in the display case to put them in the oven._

 _Peggy snorts at the statement. "Makes sense, hard to find him attractive with that girly voice of-"_

 _"Finish that insult and I'll kick you out." Rose says as she gives Peggy a glare that shows that she's not making a threat but a promise._

 _Peggy flinches at the menacing glare while Carrie tries to mirrors her glare. "Don't act like you can do anything. Hurt us and not only will the twins know, but we'll give this place such a bad online review that it'll have a worse reputation than you do."_

 _Rose furrows her eyebrows at the threat, but she backs off to get the paper cups for the drinks. Unbeknownst to her though, was that Timothy watched the scene from a crack in the thick doors. He narrows his brown eyes at the girls before he goes in the kitchen to grab something._

 _Rose only pays attention to the drinks as she goes to the ice machine to fill the cups with them. Then, she grabs the nozzle of the soda gun, that's connected to the counter, and fills the cups with diet coke._

 _Once satisfied, she puts the plastic lids and straws on them then hands them to the girls. "Here."_

 _She grabs some paper plates and goes to take the slices from the oven while the girls start drinking._

 _Timothy walks out of the kitchen with a large, dark grey, parmesan shaker in his hand and heads over to Rose. When she's about to use their usual parmesan shaker on the slices, he quickly stops her, and shows her the container as he speaks soft enough for only her to hear. "Use this parmesan instead. I got mom's permission, so it's fine."_

 _He hands her the shaker which she stares at with confusion. "What's this-?"_

 _"Hey, did you do something to the drink?" Carrie says causing the employees to look to see her lifting the lid of her cup to stare at the dark drink with disdain in her brown eyes._

 _Rose raises an eyebrow at the accusation. "What are you talking about? You saw me make them."_

 _"But it tastes weird."_

 _The brunette looks in the cup, but sees nothing wrong with it. "It looks fine to me. I don't know what-"_

 _She cuts herself off when Carrie lets the drink slip from her hand to spill all over her t-shirt. She_ _looks down at the shirt with wide purple eyes and starts grabbing napkins to wipe some of the soda off._

 _Timothy however, couldn't believe what he just saw before he narrows his eyes at Carrie. "What the hell's wrong with you?! Why'd you do that?!"_

 _Carrie snickers at his angry squeaks, but keeps an innocent look on her face. "I don't know what you mean. It was an accident. You know, you really shouldn't jump to conclusions."_

 _She holds up the cup to them as if she did nothing wrong. "Hey Rose, how about a refill?"_

 _Timothy clenches his fists at the customer's attitude as he goes to tell her off, but Rose stops him by patting him on the shoulder with a smile._

 _"Relax, it's just soda. Shanks dealt with way worse at Makino's bar."_

 _Carrie and Peggy look at her in confusion, as they don't get the anime reference, while Timothy looks at her sadly as she throws away the used napkins._

 _He sees her about to take the cup to refill it, but grabs it before she can touch it. "Wait, I'll do it…"_

 _Rose raises an eyebrow at the quick action when Timothy grabs the soda gun right next to him. He looks over the different buttons at the back of the nozzle before he turns to Carrie. "What was your drink?"_

 _"Diet coke."_

 _Timothy nods as he gets the setting ready. "Got it, I hope you like the color."_

 _Carrie and Peggy tilt their heads at the comment when Timothy suddenly turns the nozzle towards them and sprays them with diet coke._

 _Both girls scream in terror at the soda shower as they walk back until they hit the tables, but they're still in range of the weapon._

 _Rose looks at her friend in utter shock, for she's never seen him lose his temper before, while Timothy keeps spraying from Carrie to Peggy repeatedly at a fast pace. "Let's see how you like getting messed with!"_

 _Rose snaps herself out of it then goes to stop him. "Timothy, wait!"_

 _The pale boy stops his weapon while the girls are in a frozen stupor then hands Rose the gun. "Sorry, did you want a shot?"_

 _Peggy widens her dark eyes at the offer then glares at them. "Of course she doesn't you fat piece of- AH!"_

 _She and Carrie resume screaming when Rose takes Timothy's place and sprays them in any place she can. *No way Rick and the twins won't find out now, so I might as well have some of the fun!*_

 _She chuckles to herself as she keeps going while she hears them scream._

 _Peggy tries to dodge but Rose follows her movements. "STOP IT YOU COMET FREAK!"_

 _"DON'T THINK YOUR SECRET'S SAFE NOW YOU BITCH!" Carrie yells when Rose goes back to spraying her._

 _"Fine with me!" Rose chuckles as she covers them from head to toe in the dark soda then turns it off when she sees that they had enough._

 _Naomi runs out of the kitchen from all the screaming then widens her eyes at all the diet coke splashed on the floor, wall, table and her customers. "What the hell happened here?!"_

 _Everyone stops and stares at the owner in shock while Naomi turns to Rose who's holding the soda gun. "Rose, I want an explanation right now!"_

 _Timothy widens his eyes at how this looks before he takes the gun from her. "Wait mom, it's not what you think! I-"_

 _Rose takes back the soda gun from him and turns to Naomi. "I'm sorry, but it had to be done. These two are bullies from my high school. They tried to blackmail me into a free lunch and spilled their soda on me, which caused this soda storm to happen."_

 _Carrie grits her teeth at the excuse as she approaches the counter with sticky steps from the soda on the floor. "I didn't blackmail her! When my hand slipped from holding my soda, the boy went crazy and sprayed us then she followed in! I want you to fire them both!"_

 _Naomi narrows her brown eyes at the demand while she points to her employees. "There's no way I'm firing my son, and the girl doesn't work here."_

 _Peggy widens her eyes at the excuse then glares at her. "That's a lie! She's wearing the same shirt you are!"_

 _Naomi looks at Rose's stained shirt then shakes her head. "Hard to tell if that's my restaurant's shirt with the soda stain on it. Like I said though, she's not an employee. She's just a stray that comes by whenever she feels like it. She never even gave me an application."_

 _Rose pauses when she remembers the application and feels a sense of relief for not filling it out._

 _Fury begins to well up in Carrie and Peggy as they feel like they're losing this battle when Carrie snaps. "Well then I demand you pay for my dry cleaning! We were sprayed in your restaurant and were accused of blackmailing someone! Do you know how bad this looks for you and this shack you call a-!"_

 _Naomi stops her by grabbing her shoulder and pointing to the security camera that hangs from the corner of the ceiling, and records everything that goes on in the room. "Listen, I don't know what people will say about your dry cleaning, but I doubt they'll take the word of a liar. If I look through today's recording will you still tell me that you didn't try to blackmail her? Or should I just post your soda shower on YouTube so that you can get your pity?"_

 _"NO!" Both girls shout in fear of being a laughing stock._

 _Naomi nods at this as she wipes the soda off her hands from grabbing Carrie, then goes to the abandoned slices and splashes parmesan on it from the shaker Timothy tried to give to Rose. She furrows her eyebrows at the girls as she shows them the slices. "Then you'd better take your slices and keep what happened here quiet! Whatever problems you have with Rose, keep it out of my restaurant! Understand?!"_

 _The girls quickly nod as they take the slices and run out of the restaurant._

 _Rose and Timothy look at Naomi in pure shock at how she took care of them while they share the same thought. *She's a total badass!*_

 _"Don't think either of you are off the hook!"_

 _Timothy and Rose flinch at their boss' furious tone as they see her piercing them with her gaze._

 _Rose goes in front of Naomi to try to keep her from getting mad at Timothy. "Wait, it wasn't his fault! I was-!"_

 _"Trying to protect the restaurant's reputation by taking their bullshit. Timothy heard the whole thing."_

 _Rose widens her eyes at the statement while Naomi gently ruffles her hair as if she's her own daughter. "I appreciate it, but we've been through worse than a couple of spoiled brats. Next time just tell us when something's wrong."_

 _Rose can only stare at her with mixed emotions in her purple eyes for she doesn't know what to say about her sudden kindness._

 _Naomi however, has plenty to say to her son. "As for you, you know our policy for dealing with bad customers! What were you thinking?!"_

 _Timothy flinches at her glare then points to the shaker. "I was going to use it, but when that girl spilled her drink on Rose I couldn't take it anymore!"_

 _Rose looks at them both in confusion then looks at the container. "What exactly is that?"_

 _The mother and son pair speak simultaneously as if the shaker holds something normal. "Laxative Parmesan."_

 _Rose jaw drops as far as it can for the pranking weapon they used on the girls. "Wait, what?!"_

 _Timothy giggles at her shock. "Yup, it's a tasteless white laxative powder that's mixed with regular parmesan cheese. We slip this on the pizzas for customers that we don't want coming back. It works pretty well."_

 _Rose blinks at his explanation before she starts laughing. "Hahaha, that's awesome! I wish I could see their faces!"_

 _Timothy nods as he grins triumphantly. "Me too, that'll teach them to mess with one of us!"_

 _Naomi walks towards the celebrating kids, holds their heads, and clashes them together. "I don't know why you two are so happy! You still have to clean this place up!"_

 _Timothy groans at the pain as he rubs his head, but Rose cradles her head while she genuinely smiles at her employer._

 _"You got it boss!" She goes into the kitchen to grab the supplies then rushes back to start cleaning while Timothy follows her._

 _Naomi looks over the two kids working hard while they still smile in victory before she smiles at them. She heads towards the kitchen door, but stops herself. "One more thing you two."_

 _The kids turn to Naomi as she holds up the soda gun. "The next time either of you has an itchy trigger finger with this, use orange soda. It's not as popular as coke and it's stickier."_

 _The kids blink at the instructions before they nod with a large smile as they watch her walk back to the kitchen._

 _Rose happily gets to work on cleaning the tables as she can't stop thinking about how, for the first time since her family died, someone has genuinely taken her side. While she sees now that there are still some good people left in this world, she also knows that she's in deep shit when she gets home because her secret's out. She quietly sighs at her situation, but she doesn't regret it one bit because of the beautiful soda storm that she got to witness from it. She chuckles at the memory of the soda shower as she wipes off a table and looks to her friend who's cleaning the walls. "Man, that was nuts. Thanks for the help Timothy."_

 _Timothy nods as he glares at the door the girls left from. "No problem, but they deserved more than that for messing with you!"_

 _She shrugs as she keeps cleaning. "It's not that bad, when I fight them at school I always beat the crap out of them."_

 _"Awesome!" He grins at the thought of her holding her own when what one of the girls shouted from being sprayed comes back to him. "Hey, why did they call you a 'comet freak'?"_

 _Rose pauses at the question before she shakes her head with a smile. "Sorry, but I think we had enough drama for today. We can talk about that when Naomi doesn't want to kill us."_

 _He widens his eyes at the offer before he whines. "But she always wants to do that!"_

 _Rose chuckles at the joke when Timothy sighs. "It's fine if you don't want to talk about it. If you ever do, just let me know."_

 _The freckled girl pauses at the offer then slowly nods with a small smile. "Sure Squeaks."_

 _The boy grins at the atmosphere returning to normal as they finish cleaning and go back to work for the day._

* * *

Rose wakes up just after the sun began to rise with a smile from the happy memory. She looks around to see that she's sleeping in the inn with the crew. _*Mr. Toto must've brought me back here. That was nice of him.*_

She goes outside with her backpack strapped on to see that nobody else is outside. She looks in her hole to see the shovel that she left behind's still there. _*Looks like Mr. Toto went to sleep after bringing Luffy and I inside. Might as well put this time to good use.*_

She smiles to herself as she puts down her backpack then jumps into her hole and starts digging. She keeps a grin on her face as she remembers her dream of the soda incident. Even though she got thrown out of her foster home for the night for keeping that secret from her foster family and spraying down the twins' friends, she can't complain about that day at all. _*Man, I can't believe I forgot about that day. Good thing those three never went to the restaurant. I can't imagine what Timothy and Naomi would've done if they met them. I hope they didn't meet after I left...*_

She stops digging for a moment, as her guilt returns for leaving her friends without a word, then shakes it off as she gets back to work. _*I can't keep bringing myself down for leaving them. I already knew I couldn't stay there forever if I wanted to prove that mom and dad's research wasn't just theories. They knew that too when I finally gave them my application. They probably learned from this that they need an employee with less baggage.*_

She sighs to herself as she keeps digging in hopes of searching for the oasis with a cold breeze blowing from her.

Meanwhile, Luffy slowly wakes up to the sound of his stomach growling. He searches the bags that his friends aren't holding for any scraps, but there's no luck.

He stops in his search to see that the wind girl is missing. "Huh, where's Rose?"

He looks around the room then looks outside to see that she's not in any of the beds. He looks out the window to see chunks of sand flying out of one of the holes. He heads outside and looks in the hole to see Rose too distracted with digging to notice him.

He pauses when he feels her cold breeze then jumps down right behind her. "How come you always make cold breezes by yourself?"

Rose immediately stops at Luffy's voice and realizes that she's blowing a cold mood breeze again. She stops her wind by taking a deep breath then turns around with a smile. "Sorry about that, my mood breezes have a mind of their own. Hey, what are you doing up anyway?"

"I got hungry, but Sanji's holding all the food that's in his bag."

"Not all of it. I should have a few pieces of fruit left." Rose says as she uses her wind to bring her backpack down to her. She digs into her bag and brings out two mangoes. "Here ya go."

She tosses one of the mangoes to him then chomps down on hers. Luffy blinks at the sudden generosity before he grins at her. "Thanks!"

"Don't mention it." Rose says as she keeps eating.

Luffy finishes first then looks at the brunette in front of him with curiosity in his eyes. "Hey, what makes your wind cold?"

Rose almost chokes on the last bit of her mango at the sudden question before she swallows it. "W-why do you keep asking?"

"You never use it around us and you never answer my questions about it. Is it something bad?"

She widens her eyes at the question before shrugging with a smile. "Who's to say? Some people think it's healthy to feel that way sometimes."

He knits his eyebrows in confusion as he tries to understand what she means. "That doesn't make any sense. Just tell me, captain's orders!"

She pauses as she remembers that Nami's 'no fighting' ban has been lifted now that they're in Yuba. _*Shit, not again!*_

She groans to herself as she starts flying up. "That won't work on me since you're not my captain. I'm not joining your crew, so there's no point in telling you any more of my power's secrets."

Luffy widens his eyes at the answer before he stretches his arm up to grab her hand. "Then if I figure out what makes your wind cold, you have to join my crew!"

Rose's purple eyes widen at his statement as she looks down to see that he's serious. "What are you talking about?"

"If I find out what makes your wind cold before it's time for us to leave Alabasta then you have to join!"

She tilts her head at how he could've gone from going into a constant argument with her to forming a bet for her recruitment. Regardless, it has piqued her interest because of how much easier it would be to deal with, but with that is a better chance of the pirate captain to win. She furrows her eyebrows to mask her interest in the bet as she sighs. "And what if I say no to your bet? I still have my own goals to accomplish you know."

"There's no reason why you can't do it with us! It's a lot better than doing it by yourself!"

She bites her lip as she tries to find a way to talk him out of it when images of Timothy and Naomi pop up in her head. She considers her last option in how to convince him to not take her in and realizes that there's no other way around it with someone so stubborn. _*If he wants a reason then he's got one.*_

She lands in front of him and takes her hand back while her unruly bangs cover her purple eyes. "Alright, I accept your wager, but you only get two guesses a day. This way we won't annoy everyone during the journey again."

Luffy brightens up at this and opens his mouth to make the first guess, when Rose raises her hand as she lifts her head to let her eyes show that she's not backing down. "Hold on, I need to tell you why I can't join you first, so that you know what you'll get yourself into. Before I do though, I want you to promise that what I tell you stays between us. Not even your crew mates can know, alright?"

The captain widens his eyes at the seriousness in her eyes before he nods in agreement.

She takes a deep breath to steel her nerves before she begins to tell him her story. "First, I should tell you what I'm researching. You see, I'm studying a comet that has the ability to travel to other worlds."

Luffy drops his jaw at what she just said before he starts smiling from ear to ear. "Are you serious?!"

She chuckles at his encouraging grin as she goes deeper into her dream. "Yea, this comet is called the Timore comet. It's astral energy has the power to cross the barriers between the universes and travel to every world that you can imagine. My family first started this research by coming up with theories on everything they can about the comet's existence, how to travel with its power, and even on what you can expect from other worlds. My goal is to finish what they started by not only confirming every theory I learned from them along with my own, but also by travelling the universes to learn the comet's travel path."

Luffy looks at her in utter shock before smiling at her with stars in his eyes. "That's so cool! Why would this make you not want to join?!"

She loses her smile when the question pulls her out of her dream and back to reality, then she crosses her arms over her chest. "Because while I completed some of the research, I haven't perfected it. When the comet comes to this world, I'll need to test out my theories in order to see if they work."

The rubber man tilts his head as he tries to wrap his head around what she's saying. "I don't get it."

She sighs to herself as she scratches the back of her head. "Let me give you an example with a girl I know. After she saw the comet, she vanished from her world and wound up in this one by accident. The comet however, can't take away her existence from the memories of the people she knew in her old world. This means that her friends and enemies from that world lost her without ever knowing what happened to her. Now don't get me wrong, she's definitely happy to be here and to leave all the bad things from her world behind. But, there are times when she thinks back on her old friends and feels guilty for worrying them by leaving without a word."

Luffy widens his eyes at the story. "What?! Who is this girl?! Where's she now?!"

She slowly shrugs as she keeps her head down with her bangs shrouding her eyes, and makes sure that she doesn't create any mood breezes. "Doesn't matter, the only reason I'm telling you this is because I don't want that to happen to you guys."

"What do you mean?"

"I have my theories on how to travel, but that's all they are until I test them out when the comet arrives. And even though I don't want to leave yet, it's not set in stone that I'll still be here after I see the comet and work on my research. That being said…"

She walks up to him with guilt building up inside for what she's about to say, then looks him in the eye to show that she's dead serious. "Do you honestly want a crew mate who could disappear from your life without a trace, and never come back?"

He can only stand there and be completely speechless at the question. _*She could disappear?*_

He snaps out of it when he feels a breeze of hot air then cold air, softly blowing out of her, and keeps switching temperatures. Before he can say anything about the wind, Rose turns around and starts flying out of the hole. "I'll let you think about it. If you still want to keep the wager then go ahead and guess, but you gotta figure it out on your own. I won't be giving you any hints either."

She turns around when she lands on the edge of the hole and gives him the best smile she can give him after telling him her story. "Wouldn't be any fun in the game if it was easy after all. And no matter what we'll still be friends, so there's no hard feelings either way. I'm gonna go see if anyone else is up."

She walks away from the hole and allows her smile to fade while she rakes her hands through her hair. She can't stop her guilt from giving him an intense reason that could even make him speechless, but she knew that it had to be done if there was a chance for him to give up. After all, what she said wasn't a lie. With her being uncertain that she would stay in this world after she sees the comet again without making a wish, or go to a random world instead, she can't join in good conscience. It would just break both her and the crew's hearts if she became a member of the crew just to disappear on them. _*It's better for everyone if I go back to living like a stray...*_

She nods to herself as she heads inside the inn to join the others and leaves Luffy alone.

The rubber man remains speechless at his friend's retreat as he thinks back on her reason. _*So her research can make her disappear to other worlds? Then I'll make sure she doesn't disappear! I just gotta find out how she feels when her wind's cold and she'll join my crew!*_

He starts smiling at his plan until he realizes he has no idea what makes her wind cold. He sits cross legged while his face goes a little red from thinking hard about what her cold wind could mean. _*What can make it cold though? I've never even seen her face when she made it... Ugh, why does she always hide it?*_

He snaps out of it when he hears his stomach growling. He pulls himself out of the hole and rushes to the inn where the others are waking up. "Sanji, food!"

He rushes inside to get his breakfast and start the next part of his battle of will for Rose to join his crew on their adventure in Alabasta.

TO BE CONTINUED


	19. Chapter 19

Before the crew starts getting ready to leave for the next leg of their journey, they happily enjoy the breakfast Sanji prepared at the abandoned restaurant next to the inn.

Rose enjoys her meal in her own silence, but stops when she realizes that Luffy didn't start the food picking battle that they've been doing at almost every meal. She looks towards the captain, who's sitting diagonally from her, to see that he's stuffing his face like usual. Seeing as he's not doing anything strange, she lets it go and goes back to her meal.

But, she failed to notice that the captain has been giving her a sideways glance every now and then throughout the meal.

Luffy ignores the odd stares that he's receiving from some of his friends as he keeps eating and sneaking glances at the wind girl. _*What can her cold wind mean? It can't be something good if she wants to hide it… I GOT IT!*_

He suddenly stands up while he smacks his hands on the table to get everyone's attention. "You make cold wind when you're hungry!"

Rose nearly spits out the food that's in her mouth before she clamps her hand over her mouth to force it down. _*WHAT THE CRAP?! AFTER EVERYTHING I SAID TO HIM, HE DIDN'T EVEN TAKE AN HOUR TO START THE BET?!*_

Vivi and Chopper rush to make sure she's not choking while the others look at him in confusion.

"What are you going on about now Luffy?" Nami asks with Luffy explaining what's going on.

"Rose and I agreed that if I find out what makes her wind cold then she'll join the crew. So was I right Rose?"

The others look from him to Rose in utter shock as the freckled girl forces herself to swallow her food.

She catches her breath, and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand in irritation. _*Dammit, I should've known better than to try to talk him out of it. Looks like the only way out now is to win the bet…*_ Rose narrows her eyes at Luffy to show that she going to follow through with the game as she shakes her head. "I don't make cold wind when I'm hungry. Now you only get one more guess today."

Luffy groans in disappointment as he sits back down. "I got nothing…"

The wind girl nods as she gets up from her seat. "In that case, I'm gonna start getting ready."

The others watch in silence as she leaves to finish packing up for the journey.

Usopp raises an eyebrow at the sudden departure then turns to Luffy. "What did she mean by 'you only get one more guess today'?"

"I can only guess twice a day until we leave. I gotta figure it out on my own too, so don't help me!" Luffy says as he grabs the remainders of Rose's meal and chows down.

The rest of the group can only sit there in silence as they process his demand, but they silently agree as they get back to their breakfast.

Meanwhile, Rose finishes packing her backpack at the inn and grabs her camera. She heads outside and takes a few pictures of the town as she waits for the others. She tries her best to distract herself from her bet when the swordsman comes out.

Zoro pauses when he sees her take a picture of him then scowls at her. "Haven't you run out of film yet?"

Rose chuckles at his reaction as she puts the camera away. "Nope, I bought a few rolls back in Nanohana so I can capture everything."

He quirks an eyebrow at the comment. "It's just some old buildings."

She shakes her head at his misunderstanding. "I don't mean just here, but this whole desert journey. It's been one crazy thing after another."

Zoro nods before they experience a moment of awkward silence.

Rose clears her throat to try to break the silence, and rubs the back of her neck. "You were right about Luffy. He's even more stubborn than I gave him credit for."

He chuckles at the complaint. "I told you he would be. Who's idea was it to settle it on a guessing game?"

Rose sighs as she looks back at the restaurant where the rubber man's still stuffing his face. "Luffy's, I agreed to it so we wouldn't go back on that argument loop. I even told him about my research to try to throw him off, but he barely hesitated..."

Zoro chuckles at the comment, as he believes that her attempt was just about the research being a taboo, because he didn't learn the extent of it like Luffy did. "Telling him how your research could be dangerous won't help your case. You might as well have said you'll join the crew if that's all you're arguing with."

She narrows her eyes at the remark. "Shut up, I'm not giving up yet. I just gotta win this bet and he'll have to give up on me."

He sighs at her stubbornness to be alone even though almost the whole time he's seen her with the crew she's managed to get along with everyone. "Is that what you really want?"

She pauses at the question to see his hard gaze on her. "What do you mean?"

"Do you want to be left alone even if your research is taboo?"

Rose widens her eyes at the concerned question before she shrugs it off and gives him a smile. "I'll figure it out when the time comes. As for what I want, right now I just want us to make it through the fight."

A teasing smirk begins to grow on her freckled face as she starts floating up. "Didn't think you'd be the type to care about what happens to me though. Sanji's personality must be rubbing off on you."

Zoro twitches an eyebrow at the remark. "As if I'd ever become like that dart brow cook!"

Rose snickers at the complaint as she keeps taunting him. "You never know. With all the fights you have with him, I wouldn't be surprised if you start love twirling and saying 'Nami-swaan' soon."

A feeling of dread grows inside the swordsman when an image of him twirling with hearts in his eyes, just as how Sanji spins for the ladies, shows up in his mind. He nearly gags at the thought before he glares at Rose. "DON'T GIVE ME NIGHTMARES LIKE THAT!"

He tries to whack her on the head, but she quickly dodges and flies onto the tallest building where he and his swords can't reach her.

Rose chuckles at the angry expression on the swordsman's face as she acts like she did nothing wrong. "Yeesh, didn't think you'd get so mad from a simple comment. I'm gonna stay up here while you cool off." She playfully sticks her tongue at him before she turns around to look out for anything approaching the town.

Zoro scowls up at her as he considers chasing her onto the roof, but decides against it to avoid more scary mental images. He groans at the taunt then mutters under his breath. "Damn woman, I shouldn't get involved."

He sits down with his back to the building and starts taking a nap.

Rose looks down to see that he's not going to attack her again, and relaxes as she looks out at the horizon. When she thinks back on Zoro's question about her research, she starts to realize that she needs a plan. A plan to not just to learn whether or not the Timore comet is a taboo, but how she can find out the truth without showing that she's researching it. That way, she won't have to go through the World Government's bullshit as she continues her work.

She sighs to herself, for she doesn't know where to start, and lies down on the roof as she starts playing with her necklace while she stares at the morning sky as if it has an answer. _*I need someone to talk to about this, but who? I doubt Vivi knows a lot about comets or she would've-*_

Rose pauses when she remembers the royal astronomerthat Vivi told her about on their way to Drum Island. She face palms at her forgetfulness and sits herself up. _*That's right, my answer's with that astronomer! Once things are peaceful, I just gotta get close to this person and look through their research material for anything on the comet! If I find something then I can ask them about it as a curious scholar without looking suspicious!*_

She nods to her plan then looks back at the town to see that the rest of the group is starting to come outside. _*First things first though, I gotta win this bet and make sure that we all get out of this arc in one piece.*_

She chuckles at the accidental pun she thought up about this anime world's title then floats down to join the others.

Once every traveler comes outside Nami turns to Vivi. "So what's the plan Vivi?"

Vivi sighs at how things turned out as she stares at the path that they just took. "We need to head back the way we came to get to Katorea. If we're lucky we can reach the rebels before they start their battle."

The others silently agree as they start heading out, but before they leave Mr. Toto runs outside with small barrel of water in his hands. "Wait!"

The group stops when then they see him catching up to them. "Perfect, I didn't miss seeing you off!"

As soon as he reaches the group he bows before his princess. "Thank you for easing my worries Vivi-chan. I'm deeply sorry for how I acted last night."

Vivi softly smiles at him and motions for him to raise his head. "It's alright, I promise to do what I can."

Mr. Toto smiles back at her then goes over to Luffy. "Please take this with you Luffy."

He hands him the barrel of water causing the captain to smile from ear to ear. "Is this water?!"

Mr. Toto nods as he points back to his ditch. "Right after you kids fell asleep last night, I managed to reach the water level. I managed to squeeze out and distill just enough water for it to fill the barrel. I'm sorry that this was all I can give you all."

Luffy shakes his head as he grabs the rope, that's attached to the small barrel, and hangs it around his neck. "Don't worry about it. This is great, I'll drink it carefully. Thanks."

"My pleasure, good luck on your journey." Mr. Toto says with a smile as he waves the group off as they leave the town until they're out of his sight.

 _*Good Luck Vivi-chan. I'll do my best to restore the oasis in the meantime.*_ Mr. Toto gives one last smile towards the direction that Vivi and her friends travelled towards, then goes back to digging in hopes of recreating his town's oasis.

* * *

After the group loses sight of the town they left behind, they continue walking towards the direction that they came from to get to Katorea.

Rose looks back at the direction of the town they left while she tries to remember what she knows about the next part of the Alabasta arc. _*We should be heading to Crocodile's casino town soon. If I can stop the others from getting captured by Crocodile or at least help rescue them sooner than in the manga that would be ideal. The problem though is with Bon Clay. He recorded my face along with most of Luffy's crew, so Crocodile and Robin will know I'm an enemy. I'd better be careful here.*_

She keeps a contemplative look on her face as she keeps thinking of her options, then snaps out of it when she hears something drop behind her. She looks back to see Luffy sitting down with his back to a small tree. Knowing what's coming next, the freckled girl stays quiet while the others find the captain lounging around.

The group looks at him in confusion while Vivi steps up. "What's the matter Luffy?"

Luffy keeps his seat as he looks back to them. "I quit."

His crew looks at him in shock at as they try to understand what he's saying.

Nami furrows her eyebrows at his resolve. "What do you mean 'you quit'?! We don't have time for your games! Get up!"

"But we're just going back the way we came."

Sanji twitches an eyebrow at his stubbornness. "Weren't you listening to Vivi-chan? We need to take the path we took yesterday in order to get to Katorea and stop the rebellion."

Luffy sighs as he keeps his hands behind his head. "Booring~!"

"WHAT?!" Sanji fumes in irritation, but his captain ignores his complaints.

The rubber man keeps his relaxed spot as he turns his head to the princess. "Vivi."

"What is it?"

"I want to beat the crap out of Crocodile."

Everyone, but Rose and Zoro, widens their eyes at what he's saying. However, they all remain quiet as he keeps talking. "If we stop the rebels then will Crocodile stop messing with this country? If you just want the rebels to stop then you don't need us."

Sanji nearly drops the cigarette that's hanging from his mouth after he hears Luffy's explanation. "Sometimes he can hit the nail on the head without even thinking."

Usopp slowly nods. "That's Luffy for you..."

Vivi looks at him worriedly as she tries to give him a reason to stop the rebels. "Well…"

Luffy doesn't give her a chance to make an excuse as he keeps going. "You just don't want anyone to die in this war right? Not the people in your country, us or anyone else right? That's naive."

Nami widens her eyes and goes to stop him. "Luffy, that's-"

She cuts herself off when Sanji blocks her off. "Wait a minute Nami."

Nami looks from him to Luffy then decides to remain silent.

Vivi however, glares at the captain as she finds her voice. "How is that naive?! What's wrong with not wanting people to die?!"

"People will die no matter what you do."

The princess couldn't take it anymore and gives Luffy a punch across the face that knocks him onto his knees. "Don't you dare say that again! That's exactly what we're trying to stop! It's not the rebels or my people's fault, so why should they die?! This is all Crocodile's fault!"

Luffy grits his teeth as he gets up and punches her back. "Then why are you risking your life?!"

Vivi narrows her eyes at him as she tackles him and starts punching him repeatedly. "I need to in order to protect my country!"

Luffy ignores the pain in his cheeks as he glares at her. "You risking your life is not what this country needs!"

"What?!"

"You just risking one life isn't enough to help Alabasta!"

"Then what am I supposed to risk?! There's nothing else I have to-!"

Luffy grabs her wrists and sits up. "Why not try risking our lives too! I thought we were friends!"

Vivi's anger immediately washes away and is replaced with mixed emotions as tears fill her eyes. She gets off of Luffy and tries her best to hide her tears while the others look at her with sympathy in their eyes.

Luffy sighs as he dusts himself off. "See, you want to kill Crocodile the most. So where is he?"

Once Vivi calms down she goes into her bag to bring out a map. She spreads it out so that everyone can see it and then points to a town that's North West of Yuba. "Crocodile's based in a town called Rain Base. The town's north of here and will take about a day for us to get there from here."

Chopper looks at the map for a moment before turning to Vivi with hopeful eyes. "Will there be water?"

Vivi nods. "Yes, this town should have it. It's a gambling town that's separated from all the fighting, so it shouldn't have been affected by the war."

Beli signs begin to appear in Nami's eyes at the sound of gambling as a large smile forms on her face. "It's a gambling town?!"

Zoro rolls his eyes at the money loving navigator's antics but stays quiet.

Usopp looks at the map pensively for a moment when he spots Luffy's water barrel. He goes to grab it but Luffy quickly pulls it out of his reach.

"You're not getting it Usopp!" Luffy says as he keeps moving the barrel to make sure that Usopp can't reach it.

Usopp groans as he keeps trying to grab it, but Luffy keeps pulling it away. "One sip won't kill us! He gave it to us!"

Luffy shakes his head. "No way! The old man dug all night for this water! We can't just drink it right away!"

Nami blinks at Luffy's newfound restraint then starts smiling. "Wow, you can actually restrain yourself when you want to."

"Of course I can! How rude!" Luffy says as he makes sure Usopp can't grab it.

The others grin at the exchange as Zoro starts leaving in the opposite direction. "Alright already, let's just go."

Before he can keep going Rose picks him up with her wind and turns him in the right direction. "We gotta go this way."

The swordsman looks at the brunette in shock as she puts him down and walks with the others. He groans to himself as he follows the rest of the group on their journey to Rain Base.

* * *

A half an hour has passed since the crew has redirected their journey to Rain Base and the heat has begun to take effect on almost everyone.

Luffy and Usopp continue whining as they use walking sticks to keep themselves from collapsing.

"Shut up guys!" Nami says as she keeps riding Eyelashes.

"Easy for you to say, you're riding a camel." Usopp says.

Luffy nods as he turns to Rose. "Can we use your blanket to fly again?"

Rose pauses at the request before she starts considering it. _*If I make us go a little earlier than in the manga then maybe we can avoid the marine chase altogether… That might even get the crew to avoid getting caught by Crocodile…*_

She opens her mouth to give him her answer when her nose starts twitching. She tries to stop her sneeze by covering her nose, but it's no good as she unleashes another sneeze that sends her flying.

She groans to herself as she quickly catches herself with another gust of wind then lands herself next to him. "I would, but I don't wanna drop you guys with my sneezing again…"

Rose thinks over the different ways that she can stop her sneezing when an idea pops up in her head. "Wait, I got it!"

She digs into her bag and grabs a white handkerchief and ties it around her face for a makeshift medical mask. "I'll give it a try with this to avoid sneezing."

"Awesome!" Luffy says as the others sweat drop at the eccentric girl's mask.

Nami raises an eyebrow at Rose's actions as she watches the wind girl set the sheet up with her wind. "Are you sure you wanna try again? It didn't take long for you to get tired last time."

Rose nods as she hops onto her makeshift ride. "I'm sure, we gotta get there as soon as possible after all. As long as I'm not racing Eyelashes again, I won't tire out too quickly. When I get exhausted, I'll just stop the ride and we'll walk the rest of it."

Vivi looks at her with hesitance for a moment before she nods with a smile. "Alright, if you think you can handle it. Thank you for your help."

"My pleasure." Rose says as she makes sure that all the boys are seated before she starts moving the ride along.

Eyelashes follows suit without challenging her to a race this time in order to keep the remainder of his pride.

Vivi looks towards the group then smiles at Luffy. "Thank you as well Luffy."

Luffy looks back at her and tilts his head. "For what?"

"I wouldn't have come to this decision without you."

He blinks at the gratitude before he smiles at her. "Don't worry about it. You can pay me back in food when this is all over."

Vivi chuckles at the request before she nods. "I promise."

Rose looks back at her friends with a small grin before she returns her focus to the desert ahead. _*Next stop, the Rain Base!*_

She keeps a smile on her hidden face as she and the others travel through the desert for the rest of the morning.

* * *

Halfway through the journey, Rose grew too tired to continue using her wind without the risk of collapsing, so the decision was made for her and the guys to walk the rest of the way.

Rose takes off the handkerchief and puts it away along with her blanket. _*Now that we moved a little quicker than what they went through in the manga thing's could get interesting.*_

She remains quiet as she keeps walking with the boys while Vivi and Nami ride on the camel. As the heat builds up, Usopp and Luffy go back to relying on walking sticks to travel.

Zoro looks over the reindeer, who's using walk point to travel, to see that he's not complaining one bit. "You're not getting tired?"

Chopper shakes his head as he keeps walking. "No, I can manage."

Sanji sneaks a glance at the corner of his eye and smiles in pride of his crew mate as he lights up his cigarette.

After what feels like an eternity of walking, a town starts coming into view.

"Hey Vivi-chan, is that the place?!" Sanji asks as he throws away his finished cigarette.

Vivi looks at the large town from the distance, and immediately recognizes the large crocodile head at the top of a pyramid shaped building. "That's definitely Rain Base!"

Luffy grins in triumph as he raises his fists into the air. "YEA, WE'RE COMING FOR YOU CROCODILE!"

"SHUT UP LUFFY! WHAT IF HE HEARS?!" Usopp yells as he whacks his captain on the head.

Rose sweat drops at his worries. "Relax, I think we're still safe at least till we reach town."

Nami gives the dangerous town a quick glance before she turns to the sniper. "Hey Usopp, were you able to finish 'that' yet?"

Usopp pauses at the question then remembers the weapon request that she's talking about, and he digs into his pockets. "Yea, I was able to finish it."

He pulls three blue rods out of his pocket with a smirk then shows them to the navigator. "Captain Usopp is proud to present your new weapon: the clima-tact!"

Nami blinks at the name as she takes the three rods from him. "The clima-tact?"

"Yea, you can put them together to make them into a staff, and you can change your attacks depending on how you use them."

Usopp takes a piece of paper form his pocket and hands it over to her. "Here's a list of instructions to help you start out."

"Great, thanks!" She takes the piece of paper starts studying the instructions and playing around with her weapon.

Zoro looks towards the town then turns to Vivi. "Hey, do you think Baroque Works knows that we're here?"

Vivi nods at the question. "It's possible since we met Mr. 2, and Mr. 3 should be here as well."

Luffy tilts his head in confusion. "So what?"

"This means that they know we're coming. We lost the element of surprise." Usopp says.

He shrugs off his sniper's worries. "We don't need to surprise them. We just need to kick their asses."

Usopp groans at his captain's recklessness. "We can't just bull rush there! We have no idea where they could be hiding!"

Zoro hums in thought as he looks back at the town. "Assassination is their specialty after all."

Luffy doesn't see what the problem is as he looks at the town. "Then let's just kick his ass before he gets us!"

Usopp whacks him on the head again. "Were you even listening?!"

Vivi glances at the incoming town before she shakes her head. "Wait Usopp, Luffy's right. We don't have a lot of time to think up a plan. We should rest up for a moment then reach the base."

Usopp trembles at this, so Chopper looks at him in confusion. "Are you scared?"

"Of course not! Nothing scares captain Usopp!"

Nami rolls her eyes at this when they reach the town borders and stops at an intersection. "In that case Usopp, you and Luffy go into town to get us some water. We'll wait right here."

Usopp and Luffy quickly nod at this as they run deeper into town to get some water.

Rose chuckles at the quick retreat as she looks around, and spots the giant crocodile monument at the top of the pyramid, when her stomach lightly growls. _*Using the flying carpet trick must've taken more out of me than I thought. This could be a good time to scope the place out too.*_

She turns to the group with a smile. "I'll be right back. I'm gonna go get a snack."

Sanji blinks at this then grabs his bag. "Hold on, let me come with you."

She quickly shakes her head. "It's fine, it'll only take a few minutes." She starts walking off when Chopper goes up to her.

"Can I come with you? I need to head to the bathroom anyway."

Rose pauses at the request, but one look from the adorable reindeer's face takes away any resolve to say no. "Sure doc, let's go."

The pair walks off while Sanji looks at them in shock. "Why does the reindeer get to go?!"

Zoro chuckles at the complaint as he relaxes. "Probably didn't want to deal with your crap."

"What was that?!"

"You heard-"

Nami whacks Zoro on the head to stop him from starting a fight. "That's enough from both of you! Once the others get back we're moving so no fighting!"

"Yes Nami-san!" Sanji says with hearts in his eyes as he sits down while Zoro just huffs and takes a seat.

Vivi looks at the crocodile building with determination in her eyes then sits to wait for the rest of the group to return.

* * *

Rose and Chopper walk down the street through the crowds and search through the stands as if they were tourists.

Chopper sees an empty street nearby that leads to the outside of town. "I'll be right back."

Rose looks at the street that he wants to take then nods. "Ok, if you can't find me just head back to the others."

Chopper nods as he splits up with her.

She walks further down the street towards Crocodile's casino and looks around for something to eat until she finds a fruit stand. She quickly goes over and buys a few apples before she continues her stroll.

She keeps munching on the apples as she keeps walking with her hood over her head. As she continues to walk, she can't help but give sideways glances to every alleyway she walks past in case an assassin jumps her. _*Looks like no one from Baroque Works has noticed me yet. If I stay out of sight, I should be-!*_

She snaps out of her thoughts when she bumps into a large back. She shakes her head, which accidentally removes her hood, then bows her head while the white haired man she bumped into turns around. "I'm sorry, I wasn't looking where I was-"

"It's you! Straw Hat's hostage!"

Rose pauses at the feminine voice then lifts her head to see Tashigi and Smoker looking at her in shock.

Rose mirrors their facial expressions as she doesn't make a move. _*Oh crap! Wait, they still think I was a hostage, so I'm ok!*_ She quickly re-composes herself, and starts to play in her innocent hostage role as she stares at the dark blue haired marine with confusion in her eyes. "I'm sorry, have we met?"

Tashigi blinks at her attitude when she realizes that they never formally met. "Right, I'm sorry, we never met. My name's Tashigi and this is Captain Smoker, we're marines."

Rose widens her eyes as if she suddenly remembers who they were. "I remember now, you guys were chasing the pirates who grabbed me in Nanohana!"

Tashigi nods as she adjusts her glasses and scans over the brunette for potential injuries. "That's right! How did you escape the Straw Hats?! Did they do anything to you?!"

Rose takes a step back from the nosy marine before she rubs her arm while she looks at them nervously, as if she's a shaken hostage. "I-I'd rather not talk about it..."

Smoker easily falls for the well acted line as he nods in understanding. "Very well, but you should come with us. We can arrange for some officers to escort you back to your family."

Rose pauses at the invitation before she shakes her head and gives them a sad smile. "Thanks, but I don't have a family. I came to Alabasta for a fresh start."

The marines widen their eyes at the story when Rose tries to turn the conversation around by getting a close look at Smoker's face. "Wait, that face…"

They look at her in confusion when her smile starts to grow. "I knew it! I should've guessed from the cigars! You're Bobby's twin brother!"

Tashigi raises an eyebrow at the announcement before she turns to her superior. "You have a brother sir?"

"No I don't!" Smoker says before he turns to Rose. "And I don't know any Bobbys."

Rose blinks at his defensiveness before she tilts her head. "Really? He knows about you though. You two have to be related in some way, because you look just like him. The only real difference is that he's blond."

Tashigi widens her eyes at the comparison then looks at Smoker to imagine him with blond hair. She quickly covers her hand to smother her laughter from the mental image with the brunette biting the inside of her cheek so that she doesn't join her.

A tick mark begins to grow on Smoker's forehead from all the laughing, but he keeps his temper under control. "Like I said, I never met the guy. Anyway, I still want you to come with us. The Straw Hats might be around so you could be in danger. Anything you can tell us about them would be helpful too."

Rose loses her smile as the topic changes back and considers her options. _*It might look suspicious if I run. Maybe it's a good idea to go with them in case Luffy and Usopp are still at the restaurant.*_

Rose nods at the suggestion with a shy smile. "I-I'm not sure what help I'd be but I'll do what I can."

Tashigi brightens up at the answer as she links arms with her. "Great, let's go."

Smoker nods as he leads them through town. "I know a restaurant not too far from here that's quiet. We can still arrange for you to be escorted back to Nanohana if you'd like Ms. -"

He pauses when he realizes that he never caught her name. "Hey, what's your name anyway?"

Rose pauses when she realizes that she never introduced herself before she gives them a friendly smile. "My name's Rose. Thanks for the offer, but I'm still exploring my options. So where's this restaurant that you were talking about?"

Smoker blinks at the dodged question before he looks around and spots a restaurant at the end of the street. "It's over here."

He walks ahead with both girls closely following. Once they reach the building Rose gives the window a sideways glance, then turns her head with wide eyes to see Luffy and Usopp gulping down a barrel of water then ordering a meal. _*TAKE THE FOOD TO GO DAMMIT!*_

Rose quickly looks to see that Smoker's about to open the door then calls out to him. "Wait, don't go in there Bobby the second!"

Tashigi snorts from the nickname and clamps a hand over her mouth to muffle her laughter.

Smoker however, is not amused as he stops what he's doing while he twitches an eyebrow and looks back at her. "I already told you that I don't know who this Bobby is..."

"Sorry, but we can't go in there." Rose says as she takes her arm back from Tashigi and moves away from the window to keep their attention from it.

"Why not?" Smoker asks as he and his subordinate look at her in confusion.

Rose looks around for an excuse then points at the direction they just took. "I think I saw a place that's less noisy back there. It might be easier to talk about everything at that restaurant instead."

Tashigi raises an eyebrow at the suggestion then looks at the door. "I don't see much of a difference. Are you worried about being seen by the Straw Hats?"

 _*It's not them seeing me I'm worried about…*_ Rose looks at them nervously while she tries to come up with an excuse. "W-well, they can be anywhere after all. The restaurant I saw back there looked like a place they'd never-"

Smoker places a hand on her head to ruffle her hair, as if she's a child, to ease her worries. "It's alright, we won't let them hurt you. Let's go inside and talk more."

She blinks at his kindness before she sees him go to the door with his sibordinate following behind. Rose opens her mouth to try to call out to them when her nose begins to twitch. _*Oh crap, seriously?! Wait, this can work! Sorry you two, but this'll hurt you more than me.*_

She turns her back to them and prepares for her sneeze when Smoker opens the door to see his target sitting at the bar as if nothing's wrong.

Smoker and Tashigi looks at the pirates in utter shock as they draw their weapons. "IT'S STRAW-"

"ACHOO!" Rose cuts them off with her sneeze as she sends herself flying backwards and crashes into the marines to send them flying with her.

Smoker widens his eyes from the blow as he's about to reach the counter with the girls behind his back. _*Why does this keep happening to me?!*_

Luffy and Usopp both have their cheeks full of food as their eye bug out from the sight of Rose and the marines flying towards them. However, they miss the pirates, crash into the seats right next to them, and break through the counter. The patrons and pirates are completely speechless as the cloud of dust reveals Rose lying on top of Tashigi, who in turn is lying on top of her disoriented superior.

The pirates couldn't recover from the surprise quick enough to stop themselves from accidentally doing a spit take on the collapsed group. "WHAT THE HELL?!"

Rose is the first to recover as she gets up and wipes the food off her in disgust. "Seriously, what the- WAH!"

She exclaims in shock when Luffy suddenly picks her up over his shoulder with a barrel of water on his other shoulder.

"Why does this keep happening?" Rose mutters more to herself than to anyone around her as Luffy runs out of the restaurant with her in tow, while Usopp follows with a barrel in his arms.

Smoker widens his eyes at the second 'kidnapping' as he gets up and goes after them.

"Tashigi, assemble the men! I'm going after them!" Smoker calls out as he runs out of the building.

Tashigi gets up to go follow her orders when an old lady grabs her jacket. "Hold on, you have to pay for the damage!"

The marine blinks at the owner's demand before she takes her wallet from her pocket. "Right, I apologize for the damage."

"You need to pay for the food and water those kids took too!"

Tashigi hesitates for a moment before she gives her the money. "Here!" She runs off before any more distractions can be made and goes off to assemble to officers.

Meanwhile, Smoker is running relentlessly in order to reach the pirates who took the freckled girl again. _*What the hell is with Straw Hat and this girl?! Wait…*_

He remembers how his smoke kept missing when he was chasing Luffy and Rose in Nanohana, then looks back on how he got sent flying after hearing Rose sneeze. He looks at the pale girl to see that she's keeping a perfectly frightened expression on her face to avoid looking suspicious. _*She couldn't have done it right?*_

He shakes his head to get the idea out of his head and decides to get his answers after he rescues the hostage.

Luffy looks back in shock to see that Smoker's still on the chase. "Why are the marines here?!"

Usopp does the best he can to keep the barrel of water in his arms as he keeps running. "How should I know?! Wait, what were you doing there Rose?!"

Rose groans as she covers her face with her hands and keeps her head down to keep her face hidden. "I was walking around town when those marines bumped into me. They didn't know we were friends, so they brought me to the restaurant to talk. Good thing I went with them or you guys would've been stuck without an opening."

"COME BACK HERE!" Luffy and Usopp look back to see the marine captain trying to pick up the pace with his officers joining the chase. They look at them in horror as they run for their lives.

"Let's just focus on losing them!" Usopp says as he drops the barrel to keep up the pace with Luffy as they reach the rest of the crew, except for Chopper who's still in town.

The rest of the crew looks at the chase in utter shock as it comes towards them.

"Why are they bringing the chase here?!" Nami asks as they make a run for it.

Luffy and Usopp catch up to them as fast as they can with the marines not too far behind.

"Hey guys, the marines are here!" Luffy says with Sanji glaring at him.

"You're the one who brought them! And why are you carrying Rose-chan like that again?!"

"Because she sneezed on the marines!"

"That doesn't mean you can carry her like that! At least carry her like a lady!"

Usopp widens his eyes at the complaint. "That's what you're mad about?!"

Vivi looks around while running to see that Chopper isn't with them, so she goes next to Luffy to talk to Rose. "What happened to Chopper?"

"He and I've split up after we left you guys. He should be fine on his own." Rose says soft enough for her and half the group to hear while she keeps her head down.

Luffy ignores the crowd as he keeps running. "Where's Crocodile Vivi?!"

Vivi looks around the tall buildings then points to the pyramid with a crocodile structure on it. "His hideout is at the building with a crocodile on it. It's the casino he owns called Rain Diners."

Zoro nods when he sees a fork in the road coming up ahead. "We should split up and meet there."

Sanji and Luffy nod when they reach the two roads with Sanji, Nami, and Usopp taking the right road while Zoro and Vivi take the left road. Luffy however, jumps into the air with Rose still on his shoulder.

"DON'T LET THEM GET AWAY!" Smoker calls out as most of his men start taking the paths that Zoro and Sanji's groups took.

Luffy makes it on the rooftop and jumps to the next one while he sticks his tongue at Smoker with a shit eating grin. "COME AND GET ME SMOKEY!"

"Don't think you can run forever punk!" Smoker mutters under his breath as he quickly turns his body into smoke and sends it spiraling towards the captain. "White bind!"

Rose goes to block the smoke, but it quickly switches direction to go behind Luffy before she can react and wraps around his waist in mid air. Luffy reacts quickly by taking a deep breath and expanding his stomach to break the smoke. "Gum gum balloon!"

He manages to push Smoker off of him to send the three of them falling towards a horse pen and lets go of the barrel.

"Whoa!" Rose yelps in shock when they start free falling and sees Smoker falling towards them. She quickly uses her wind to send the falling barrel flying into Smoker's side so that he crashes into a pile of hay.

The marine groans from the crash landing as he gets up, then widens his eyes to see that Luffy's landing is being slightly slowed down by a gust of wind that would've been unnoticed if he wasn't paying close attention. _*I knew something was up! But that girl...*_

He looks at the fragile looking girl who still has her frightened mask on as Luffy carries her away. He quickly gets up and returns to the chase between him and Luffy. _*Even if she's the one doing it, she could be forced to.._. _Either way I'm getting my answers!*_

Rose widens her eyes when she sees the fierce look in the marine's eyes as he keeps running after them. _*Whoa, this is getting more intense than in Nanohana!*_

She keeps her head down and her arms blocking her head, so she can speak softly to the rubber man. "Luffy, whatever you do keep running. I'll do what I can to cover you from Smokey's attacks."

Luffy nods when he looks back at her to see her frightened face. "Hey, you ok?!"

She takes her mask off to give him a mischievous smirk while her arms are keeping her face covered from the marine. "Yea, I'm not scared, I'm just messing around with fumezilla."

Luffy chuckles at the nickname before he looks at her in shock when he comes up with an emotion for her cold wind. "Wait, you make cold wind when you're scared don't you?!"

She loses her smile at his guess, that only reminds her of the bet, and sighs. "Now's not the time for that and I haven't made a scared mood breeze yet. Just keep running."

Luffy drops his shoulders then puts his focus back to running for his life with Smoker on his tail.

Smoker tries to attack Luffy with his smoke, but Rose uses her wind to slightly deflect it so it looks like he missed. He clenches his fists in frustration as he keeps running. _*Dammit, what kind of power does she have?! Is she even a hostage or is she playing me?!*_

He looks at the girl's frightened face for any cracks in the mask, but he can't see any signs of it being fake.

Rose looks away from his fierce gaze, that's making her even more nervous, and helping her to keep a convincingly scared look on her face.

Smoker keeps his intimidating stare on the girl to try to figure out what's going on when he remembers what she's doing on this island. _*"I came to Alabasta for a fresh start..."*_

The eyes that he saw when she spoke those words held nothing but the truth and dashed his suspicions of her being a pirate. He shakes his head to snap out of it, and decides that the most important thing right now is to go after the target and rescue the hostage.

* * *

Usopp and Nami keep running as fast as they can while Sanji takes care of the marines that were chasing them.

"How much farther until we reach this alligator building?" Usopp asks as he keeps his eyes forward.

Nami looks at the alligator looking building that will be coming up ahead. "We're almost-"

She stops herself when a bullet flies past their heads, which makes them to scream in terror. They look back to see four low class members of Baroque Works agents chasing them with rifles in their hands.

"We got them now! Take aim and fire!" One of them calls out as the group stops running to aim for the pirates just when they reach the building.

Nami and Usopp scream in fright when they see them aiming, but when the trigger was about to be pulled Zoro runs in from out of nowhere to kick the closest one. The kick sends him flying towards his three comrades and sends them crashing into a nearby building to knock them out.

Usopp gapes at the sudden rescue when Nami looks around to see that the princess isn't with him.

"What happened to Vivi?!"

Zoro looks around to see that Vivi isn't in the area yet. "I let her go ahead so that I could take care of the marines. She's not here yet?"

Usopp looks back at the building in thought. "She might be in there already."

Nami nods as she looks back at the building. "Come on then, let's-"

"GUYS!" The group looks back to see Luffy yelling for him as he runs towards them with Rose still on his shoulder and an angry marine captain not too far behind.

"STOP, DAMMIT!" Smoker yells as he keeps running after them, but Luffy doesn't give in.

"GUYS, GET INSIDE! SMOKEY WON'T STOP!" Luffy yells, so his crew mates act fast and run inside with Luffy close behind.

Smoker goes towards the doors, but he's blocked off by two security officers. "We're sorry sir, but government officials aren't allowed here."

The marine widens his eyes at this as he tries to go in but the two guards keep holding him back. "Are you kidding me?! Those pirates have a hostage!"

"We'll call security to take care of them then, but you can't come in!"

Smoker narrows his eyes at the as he gets ready to break through.

Meanwhile, the pirates quickly run through the casino and stop at the slot machine area when they see the marine not chasing them.

Rose manages to get off of Luffy's shoulder while Luffy looks around for Crocodile. "CROCODILE, GET YOUR ASS OUT HERE!"

Nami and Usopp stop him from shouting by smacking him on the head. "SHUT UP!"

Luffy rubs his head then scowls at them. "How else are we supposed to find him?"

Usopp pauses for a moment when he realizes that Luffy's right. "Now that you mention it, without Vivi we won't know what he looks like."

"Where is Vivi anyway?" Nami asks with the three of them having no answer to that question.

They get ready to shout when Rose lifts them up in the air to stop them, turns them to face her and Zoro, and then sets them down. "Don't start shouting again! Look, Crocodile owns this place right? So he probably has some big shot office! We can start there!"

The others stare at her in shock for the assertiveness before Luffy nods. "Alright, then let's go kick Crocodile's-"

"THERE YOU ARE STRAW HAT!" The others look back at the entrance in shock to see that Smoker bull rushed past the guards and barged through the doors.

"Oh crap, Smokey!" Luffy says as he and the rest of the pirates make a run for it.

Rose goes to run on instinct when a line of white smoke wraps around her waist and pulls her backwards.

She looks down in shock to see that the smoke's lifting her back and looks to see that the others didn't notice her being grabbed. She decides to stay quiet as Smoker takes her from the chase to make sure that they don't try to fight the marine.

Smoker sets her down behind him then goes back on his chase for the pirates. "You're safe now, so get out of here!"

Rose widens her eyes at the 'rescue', when she realizes what's coming next, and goes after them. _*Dammit, they're gonna head for the trap door!*_

She flies up to search for the crew then freezes when she sees them going towards a door that says 'the VIP Room', where they're being lead by a few of the employees, with Smoker not far behind. "WAIT!"

She flies after them and tries calling out to them, but the shouts from the distressed gamblers who are being pushed, because of the chase along with the loud slot machines are blocking out her sound.

Not too far from the chase, a dark haired woman in her late twenties and wearing a white cowgirl outfit, keeps a calm smile on her face as she watches the freckled girl fly after the others. "Now what's this?"

Rose ignores the attention she's receiving as she flies after her friends who are going into a hallway that splits into two paths.

Nami looks at the two signs at the end of the hall, that have one pointing to the right that says 'Pirates' and the sign pointing to the left saying 'VIP room'. "We need to go left guys!"

Luffy looks at the signs then shakes his head. "Wait, the one to the right's for pirates! We should go there!"

"That's obviously a trap!" Usopp says, but his captain doesn't listen as he goes to the right with the rest of the group to reluctantly following.

Smoker turns the corner after them just when Rose reaches the hall.

"AAH! A PIT TRAP!" Rose widens her eyes at Luffy's shouting and rushes to the room just when the pit trap in the pirate room finishes closing.

"CRAP!" Rose goes into the room and tries to blast her wind on the doors to open them, but they won't budge. She flies up and slams herself down on the door to try to phase through, but she only slams her right shoulder into the door without leaving a single dent. She groans in frustration as she rubs her shoulder and stands up. _*Shit, they're probably in the sea stone cage now! I should sneak into the basement and find a key!*_

She turns around to leave the room, but freezes when she sees the woman that was watching her fly around in the casino wearing a calm smile as she blocks the doorway. "Looks like I was right in guessing that the trap wouldn't work on you. Now what shall we do with you?"

The tension begins to fill the air as Rose finds herself alone with Nico Robin, who's the crew's enemy right now, and finds that the only way out is being blocked by her. She clenches her fists as she gets in a stance for a fight with only one thought in mind. _*HOLY FREAKING SHIT! I GET TO FIGHT HER?!*_

TO BE CONTINUED


	20. Chapter 20

**A/N: Hey everyone, first off Happy New Year! I want to thank you guys for supporting the revision throughout the year. I'm sorry for being so slow on my updates lately, but I finally managed to get a new job at a credit union so my updates should be coming in faster now.**

 **I hope you guys enjoy the new chapter and the upcoming chapters in the new year :)**

* * *

Nico Robin's stoic smile doesn't change as she watches the shorter girl getting in a stance. "So, you're planning to fight? You do know who I am right?"

Rose keeps her fists tight as she keeps her stance in front of the last person she wants to fight, but doesn't see any way around it in to escape. "Of course I do. You're Ms. All Sunday, Crocodile's partner in crime."

Robin giggles at the title she's given. "His 'partner in crime' huh? That's a new one, but I suppose it's an appropriate title. Since you know who I am, do you really think you can get past me?"

As much as Rose doesn't want to be enemies with Robin, she couldn't stop the small smirk from growing on her face from the challenge as she flies towards her. "Only one way to find out!"

The archaeologist giggles at the charge as she crosses her arms over her chest with her palms facing up, but quickly loses her smile when the left hook punch coming towards her side turns into a gust of wind. Robin widens her eyes when the strong gust sends her flying to the right, while Rose is sent flying in the opposite direction from the strength of her blast.

Both girls slam their backs to the opposite walls, but Rose quickly recovers and takes the opening to fly out the room.

Robin recovers from the surprise attack and runs to the doorway to see her prey flying away. She starts running after her while she crosses her arms over her chest again to try to slow her down. "Tres fleur"

Rose widens her eyes when she sees three long arms growing from her body, with two arms from her back and the last one coming from her stomach. _*Holy crap, this is awesome! Wait, I can't fan girl about this right now! Get them off!*_

She flies to the left to slam her side to the wall to try getting an arm off of her. Once she hits the wall, the arm disappears, but it quickly regrows as she continues her escape.

Robin runs after her as she clenches her fists to put her in a hold, but it's her turn to be shocked when her hands only go through the brunette. Before she can try another attack, she suddenly feels a draft by her legs and looks down to see that a gust of wind has gathered by her feet. She couldn't react in time before the wind sends her body flying up and slams her to the ceiling.

As soon as the wind began to send her flying, Robin broke her concentration, and the arms that she grew on Rose's body vanished into pink flower petals. Rose doesn't give Robin another opportunity as she flies out of the hallway and back to the casino while the wind holding Robin up fades away.

Robin quickly lands on her hands and knees while she replaces her smile with a scowl. She quickly gets up and runs after Rose, but when she reaches the casino all she sees are gamblers playing the slots and table games as if nothing's wrong.

A large man dressed in a suit runs up to her with a concerned look on his face. "Manager, I saw a girl flying around here! She landed somewhere in the slot area, and hid herself within the crowd! I've sent some men to go look for-"

He pauses when he sees Robin not listening to him as she stares at the room with her eyes hidden behind her hat. "Are you alright manager?"

Now, while most people would be angry at their opponent's escape, Robin couldn't help but smirk at the new development as she lifts her head to show him her cold, blue, eyes. "I'm fine, things just got interesting. Do whatever you can to find her and let me know where she is imm-"

She stops herself from giving the order when something in her pocket begins to ring. She goes into her pocket to pull out a blue snail that can fit in the palm of her hand. "What's going on?"

The snail starts smirking at her before he responds. "Ms. All Sunday, it's one of the millions. I'm here to report that we found Ms. Wednesday and have her surrounded outside the Aqua Bar. She's putting up a fight, but we should be able to deliver her to you soon-"

He stops talking when the smile on his face changes into a dropped jaw. "Wait, is that a falcon?! WHAT THE HELL?! DOES THAT BIRD HAVE A SWORD?! AAAAH!"

The only thing Robin can make out was the sound of slashes from the snail before the connection gets cut off, and leaves her with a sleeping snail in her hand. She looks back at the nervous man next to her, and sighs when she comes to a decision on how to handle the current situation. "I want you to find the flying girl and bring her to Crocodile. At the very least, make sure that she doesn't leave this casino."

"Yes ma'am." The security guard respectfully bows to his superior then goes to work while Robin heads to the door to go after her next target.

Unbeknownst to her though, was that Rose was standing behind a nearby large, unused, slot machine and watching the conversation. When she sees that Robin left the building, she sighs with a large smile as she allows her legs to give way and sits on the floor. _*Oh my god, I'm so lucky that I ate a logia fruit! I can't believe I managed to pull a fast one on Nico Robin! That was freaking awesome!*_

She laughs in victory then covers her mouth with her hand and looks around to make sure that nobody heard her. Once she knows that she's still undetected, she takes her hand off her mouth, grabs the machine to help her stand up, and looks around to see some security guards scanning the area. She takes a seat at the machine to blend in with her environment, and examines it as if she's a gambler in order to think up her next move. _*Ok, Crocodile's probably in the basement with Smoker and the crew. Vivi should've been rescued by Pell by now and Robin just left to meet with them… Looks like the most effective strategy would be to-*_

She snaps back to reality when she feels a large hand land on her shoulder. She slowly turns her head to see the large man in a suit, who was talking to Robin, giving her a friendly smile with four men in similar suits surrounding the two of them. "Hello miss, please come with us. Our president wants to invite you to-!"

She cuts him off by grabbing his suit jacket and using her wind to throw him to her right in order to slam him into two of the other guys.

The nearby gamblers widen their eyes at the brawl as they watch the third man go to lunge at her, but she jumps out of her seat to dodge. She grabs his arm to pull her close and roundhouse kicks him in the gut as hard as she can to knock the air out of him. The fourth guy throws a left hook at her, but she uses the guy she's holding as a shield and lets him take the blow to his face before she uses her wind to send him flying to the attacker.

The man that she first threw recovers and grabs her arms from behind, but she lifts both him and herself up with her wind. She quickly flies backwards with him to slam him into a giant slot machine along with her, which causes half of the coins from the machine to fall out and land onto the floor. Rose cringes from the force as she frees her arms from the unconscious man's hold and pulls herself out of the hole to see that the other four security men have her surrounded.

"There's no way for you to run so just give up." One of the men says as they start approaching her.

She narrows her eyes at them as she gets ready to fly when the coins, that are by their feet, start bouncing from a light tremor. Rose looks over the guards' shoulders and widens her eyes at what she sees before she flies up towards the ceiling.

The guards widen her eyes at the flight when Rose gives them a cheeky smirk as she points to something behind them. The men nervously look back and flinch when they see a mob of gamblers running towards them for the free money.

"AAAH!" They yell in fright as they get bull rushed by the crowd that's gathering around the broken slot machine to grab every fallen beli available.

Rose's smirk doesn't fade as she flies away to the direction of the VIP room entrance. However, when she looks back, her smile quickly fades at the sight of ten new guards coming after her. "Oh come on!"

She goes into to the entrance to the VIP room, but when she goes to the end of the hall where the paths split she goes the opposite direction of where the pit trap is with the guards following her. She flies down a flight of stairs to the lower levels of the lair, then looks back to see that she's gaining some distance from them, but they're not giving in as they jump down the stairs to try to catch up. When she reaches an intersection that splits into three paths she stops, turns towards them, points her right arm at them, and turns it into a strong gust of wind to send the two front men flying backwards. The men crash into their comrades behind them and forces them collide into each other in a domino effect until they all collapse.

Once they recover, they sit up and look to see that the wind girl is already long gone.

The dark skinned, brown haired man, who is the largest man in the group, grits his teeth as he stands up and points to the three men in front of him. "You three, come with me to go on the path ahead." He points to another trio in the middle. "You three go take the left." He looks towards the remaining men. "As for you three, take the right. If any of us finds her then we'll alert the others on a baby den den mushi. Got it?"

The rest of the cronies nod in agreement as they follow his orders and take the different paths. As the group that took the path ahead runs through the halls, they open up every door they come across in hopes of finding her.

When they reach the third door, they open it as wide as possible to show a room full of multiple swords, daggers, and guns all over the walls, but no signs of the girl.

The large man clicks his tongue in frustration as he closes the door behind him to go back on his search. What he failed to notice though, was that his target was hiding behind the door that he opened the whole time.

Knowing that she's at least safe for a short period of time, Rose allows herself to let out a sigh of relief as she looks around the weaponry. _*Whoa, this selection's awesome.*_

She stares at the various kinds of equipment and decides that it's best to take a weapon in case her abilities aren't enough. She scans around the room for something that she can work with and mulls over her options. _*Hmm, what's good for a beginner?*_

She glances at the shelf full of guns and scowls at them as if they're going to attack her. "No way in hell…"

She turns away from the shelf and looks over a shelf that's holding sheathed swords. She grabs onto a thin, navy blue, katana sheath that's about the same the length as her long, scrawny, arm. She lifts the sheath up with just her left hand to test its weight. Once satisfied with its lightness she grabs the white hilt with her other hand to unsheathe it and takes a look at the thin, sharp, silver colored blade. She grins down at her reflection from the blade then slides it back into the sheath. "This one should do."

She grabs a black, leather, belt that's meant for holding weapons and wraps it around her small waist. Once she sets the sheath in the belt's scabbard that's on her left hip she heads to the door. She opens it just a crack to make sure that the coast is clear then leaves to go through the maze like corridors to reach the fight of her life.

* * *

Smoker and the pirates have tried what they could to get out of the large sea stone cage that they're trapped in since they fell from the pit trap. However, they could do nothing to escape the cage that's set up near the center of the enormous room that holds a staircase leading to the door, and a table with four chairs under it that's just out of the cage's reach.

Seated on one of the chairs is a muscular pirate wearing fancy clothes and a golden hook for a left hand. What's the most recognizable part of his features though, is the long, horizontal, scar that stretches across his face. Crocodile chuckles at his trapped enemies as he relaxes in his spot. "Shouldn't be long before my partner brings our last guest in, so just hang tight."

"LET ME OUT SO I CAN KICK YOUR ASS CROCODILE!" Luffy yells out from inside the cage as he grabs the bars and immediately feels exhausted.

Nami pulls her captain away from the cage then whacks him on the head. "Will you stop grabbing the bars already?!"

Luffy rubs his head from the hit when the large doors at the top of the staircase suddenly open.

"CROCODILE!" The mentioned pirate, along with his captives, look at the top of the staircase to see a furious Vivi standing there.

Robin casually stands at the doorway to make sure that Vivi doesn't run while the princess glares at the warlord.

Crocodile however, isn't fazed from the hateful stare as he grins up at her. "Well hello Princess Vivi of Alabasta. Or should I say Ms. Wednesday? You've come pretty far to get here."

Vivi keeps her glare on him as she reaches the inside of her coat for her peacock strings. "I'd come from anywhere to watch you die Mr. 0!"

The warlord of the sea chuckles at the statement as his grin turns into a smirk. "The only thing that's going to die is your worthless country."

The insult managed to make her snap as she jumped off the staircase with her deadly strings twirling from both of her pinkies.

Luffy, Usopp and Nami look at her in shock while Zoro and Smoker just stare at the charge nonchalantly. Crocodile pays no mind to the approaching princess as he grabs a cigar and lighter from his pocket. Before he can light it up, Vivi quickly slashes through his head, which turns into sand, and also breaks through the upper half of the back of his chair, before she lands on the table.

"WHOA!" Luffy yells in shock as Luffy, Usopp, and Nami look at the pirate in pure shock as Zoro stays silent.

"Nope." Smoker says as he lights his cigar and watches Crocodile's body shifting into sand.

Vivi widens her eyes at how her opponent's body is moving around as if it's a sandstorm.

"Are you satisfied now Ms. Wednesday? I'm surprised you didn't hear about my sand sand fruit from living here." Vivi widens her eyes at Crocodile's voice when he suddenly re-materializes behind her.

Before she can react, Crocodile quickly presses his hand over her mouth and wraps his hook over her hand so that she doesn't attack him.

Usopp and Nami widen their eyes at the sudden attack as they jump back. "He's a sand man?!"

Luffy narrows his eyes at Crocodile as he grips the bars. "LET HER GO BEFORE I-"

He slumps from exhaustion from touching the sea stone so Zoro drags him away from the bars.

Crocodile ignores the noise that his prisoners are making as he drops Vivi onto a chair and gets off of the table. "Just sit down and quit glaring, it won't do you any good."

He looks around then quirks an eyebrow when he looks to the doorway to see Robin starting to leave the room. "Where are you going Ms. All Sunday?"

Robin stops moving then turns back to her superior with a calm smile. "I need to go round up the last person from Mr. 2's list. She didn't fall for the pit trap with the others, but she should still be somewhere in the building."

Luffy tilts his head at the answer. "Hey, do you mean Ro-"

Nami cuts him off by covering his mouth with her hand and whispering to him from behind. "Don't say Rose's name in front of Smoker, you idiot! He'll go after her too if he knows she hangs out with us!"

Luffy widens his eyes at what Nami told him then takes her hand off his mouth to glare at the marine, that's been relaxing near the back corner of the cell this whole time. "Don't go after R- Ah!"

Before Luffy can say Rose's name Nami whacks him on the head. "Shut up!"

Smoker raises an eyebrow at the pirates' odd exchange, but lets it go when he sees Crocodile looking at the cage. The warlord sees that Robin's right then looks back at her while he waves his hand dismissively. "It's just one girl right? The millions and the casino guards will be enough for her. It's not like she can stop our operation anyway."

Robin keeps a grin on her face, as she shows no intention of telling him about her devil fruit, and goes down the stairs to join him. "That's true; everything should be set in motion by now."

Vivi widens her eyes at Robin's remark then glares at Crocodile. "What have you done?!"

Crocodile can only smirk as he thinks back on his plans. "As you already know we've been stirring the rebellion by drying them up with the dance powder and my sandstorms. And by now, my men should have pushed the rebel leader Kohza to finally destroy this country. He'll be riding off to Alubarna with his men to end this civil war once and for all."

Vivi widens her eyes at this before she starts standing up to attack him, but before she can get out of the seat two pairs of arms grow from the back of her chair to hold her shoulders down and her arms to her sides. "Haven't you done enough to this country?! What do have to gain from all this destruction?!"

Crocodile snickers at her distress as he watches her continue to try to get out of the chair until it falls to the side along with her. "What do you think you're doing Ms. Wednesday? Just accept that you failed."

She doesn't listen to his words as she keeps struggling to get out of the arms' embrace. "I won't give up! We can still stop you by reaching Alubarna before the rebels do!"

The warlord lightly scoffs at the remark before he reaches his pocket. "If you want to go to Alubarna then go right ahead. However…"

He takes a golden key out of his pocket to show it to everyone. "Without this, you'll have to do it alone."

Luffy widens his eyes at the key. "Is that for the cage?! Give it here!"

Crocodile ignores the demand as he steps on a floor switch to open a pit trap right in front of him. "If you go to Alubarna to stop the killing now you will have a slim chance of stopping them, but your friends will surely die here. Of course, it's up to you whether or not you want to save these fools. Just get the key from the pit."

Vivi looks at the warlord in shock as he drops the key into the hole, without a care in the world, so struggles frantically to get out of the chair until she suddenly feels the arms that are holding her disappear. She rushes to the hole to look down and see that it landed in a pit that holds four doors to the lake that can be seen from the walls of the room. "Is that the bananadile lair?!"

Luffy tilts his head at the animal name. "Bananadiles?" He looks out this room's window from the cage then widens his eyes to see that the room's underwater and a giant crocodile with what appears to be a banana growing out of his head is swimming out there. "Whoa?! There's a crocodile growing out of that banana!"

Usopp looks out the window with wide eyes. "No it's not! It's a banana growing out of the crocodile!"

Vivi ignores their shock as she stands up to get ready to jump into the pit. But, she stops herself when she sees a bananadile crawl into the room and immediately eat the key. She becomes completely stunned at the development as she watches the bananadile swim off with the key in his stomach.

Luffy looks at her in confusion when he sees that she's not moving to get the key. "What's the matter?"

Vivi turns her head towards them while the rest of her body doesn't move an inch. "A bananadile just swallowed the key!"

The group looks at her in utter shock, but Luffy is the most shocked of them all as he speaks up. "What?! Make him spit it out!"

"I can't do that! Bananadiles are so vicious that they even eat sea kings!"

As the ones trapped in the cage grimace at the new fact, Crocodile can only smirk as he flips a switch on the wall that opens another door on the floor. Once satisfied with his work, he turns around to leave from the door that's on the opposite side of the door Vivi came in from. "Sorry that I can't stay to see how this goes, but we must be going. Good luck finding the key among those bananadiles."

He stops just when he reaches the door with Robin and turns to the group. "Oh, and one more thing. This room will be destroyed in an hour."

At this point, every person in the room besides Robin was ready to kill him. However, the group quickly stops glaring at him when a giant bananadile comes into the room.

Nami and Usopp scream in fright at the large gator while Luffy narrows his eyes at the gator and calls out to the princess. "Vivi, beat it up so it spits out the key!"

Nami turns to him in disbelief. "Are you crazy?! She can't do that!" She turns to the princess who's about to get her peacock strings. "Don't be crazy Vivi! Just run!"

The princess ignores her advice as she sees no other way around saving her friends but to fight. She twirls her deadly strings on her pinkies, and lashes one of the strings at the alligator's head just between the eyes, but he barely feels the attack as he opens his jaw. He tries to take a bite out of her, but she manages to jump out of the way just in time.

Crocodile keeps a smirk on his face as he feels satisfied that the bananadile will take care of his pests, so he opens the door to leave with his subordinate. What he and Robin didn't expect from opening the door though, was a scrawny, freckled, girl flying towards them from the end of the hall with five of his goons running after her.

Rose fails to notice the open doors ahead as she glares back at the guards. "Will you quit chasing me already?!" She creates a gust of wind from her fist that sends them flying backwards. She smirks in victory as she looks where she's going then widens her eyes when she's just a few feet from Crocodile's face. "Crap!"

She tries to stop her flying, but it's too late as she flies straight through the sand man and into the room.

Even though everyone was surprised by the sudden entrance, Smoker is the most surprised out of them all as he watches her land in the opposite side of the room. _*That wind really was her?!*_

Rose spits out the sand she got in her mouth from flying through Crocodile, and wipes the sand off her body as she looks around the room. She stops when sees Vivi standing by the cage where the others are and grins at them. "There you are, I've been looking all over for-!" She shuts herself up to the sound of heavy stomping and turns to the right to see the bananadile running to take a bite out of her.

"Holy shit!" Rose narrowly dodges the enormous jaws as she unsheathes her sword and charges at him to slash his cheek.

Usopp and Nami widen their eyes at the strike. "She slashed the alligator!"

Zoro shakes his head at the poorly made strike on the bananadile's left cheek. "She won't get anywhere with weak strikes like that."

Luffy ignores Zoro's comment as he yells out to Rose. "Slash him harder and make him spit out the key Rose!"

Smoker widens his eyes at the pirates' comments and realizes that Rose truly did play him like a fiddle this whole time. He bares his teeth out as he watches the girl slash the reptile in the one of its front legs then flies up to dodge its jaws. _*That little brat! If the bananadile doesn't kill her then I will!*_

Nami flinches the marine's glare, even though it's not directed at her, and sighs in defeat. _*Looks like there's no point in trying to cover for her now.*_

She shakes her head as she goes back to watching the fight to see the bananadile becoming furious with the wind girl.

The giant reptile growls at the shallow cut in his leg as he goes on his hind legs to reach her. She widens her eyes at the increased reach as she flies backwards to dodge the jaws that manage to take a bite out of the giant chandelier when he almost hits the ceiling. She sees the opening on the bananadile's stomach and charges as fast as she can to slam into his stomach in an attempt for him to throw up, but the bananadile doesn't even flinch as he leans forward to get back on all fours. Before Rose can get body slammed, she quickly flies out of the way as the bananadile's front legs return to the floor and his eyes remain focused on the freckled girl who's ready to fight.

Vivi rushes to her aid by getting her peacock strings out and slashing the other side of his face. The bananadile retaliates by going to strike her with his tail, but Rose quickly uses her wind to lift her out of the way.

Rose gently lands the both of them at a safe distance behind the gator while the reptile starts turning around for another attack.

Rose keeps both her hands clenched onto her sword as she narrows her eyes on the bananadile. "Vivi, just to make sure we're on the same page, did that bananadile eat the key to their cage?"

Vivi keeps her strings clenched as she keeps her glare on the bananadile. "That's right, but don't know if this one ate it or-"

She cuts herself off when they hear the sound of loud roaring from behind them and they quickly look behind them to see that another bananadile came into the room with a hungry look in his eyes.

Rose grits her teeth at the new reptile when she looks out the window to see at least four more bananadiles are lining up to get in the room. She grips her sword as tight as she can then looks down to see that water from the door is now reaching their feet as it starts filling the room. _*Crap, I don't have much time.*_

Vivi turns back to the first bananadile and gets her strings ready. "Rose, you take the new one and I'll fight this one."

Rose nods as she jumps into the air and creates a gust of wind to keep her floating above the water. "Fine by me, try to aim for the stomach as hard as you can. They're bound to cough up something."

Vivi nods as she charges towards her opponent while Rose goes after her gator.

Crocodile keeps an amused smirk on his face as he watches the girls feebly fighting against the powerful monsters. "Looks like the last girl came on her own. Let's get going."

Robin nods as she watches Rose trying to go for his side, but she had to fly back to avoid its massive jaw from taking a bite out of her. She grins in amusement as she turns around to join her boss. "Fine with me-"

She stops herself when the snail in her pocket starts ringing. The bananadiles, girls and the captives look over at the vice president as she brings out the snail that's in her pocket and answers it. "What is it?"

The snail looks at her in confusion as a swirly mustache forms on his face. "Hello? Am I doing this right? Can you hear me?"

Crocodile raises an eyebrow at the questions. "Of course we can hear you. What do you want?"

The snail widens his eyes at the voice. "Oh I remember that voice! This is the shitty restaurant."

Crocodile raises an eyebrow at the name when he remembers hearing that in Little Garden. "The shitty restaurant?"

The snail brightens up at the name. "Great, you remembered me!"

Luffy widens his eyes at the snail's voice. "That's San-!"

Usopp covers his mouth to stop him from blowing Sanji's cover. "Don't say it! He doesn't know about him!"

Rose grins in relief at Sanji's voice. _*Alright, looks like things are pulling through now.*_

Crocodile ignores everyone's surprise as he glares at the snail as if he's the pirate himself. "Who the hell are you?"

The snail snickers at the question before smirking. "You can call me Mr. Prince."

While the rest of the group is distracted by the conversation, Rose flies behind Vivi and whispers to her. "I can't send you flying with your ankles in the water, so on the count of three I need you to jump. When you do I'll lift you up to the top of the stairs, so that you can go bring Sanji here, alright?"

Vivi nods at the plan as slowly starts bending her knees while hearing Rose quietly count. "One, two, three!"

Vivi jumps up a few feet in the air to get out of the water. When she starts falling she gets caught in a gust of wind that Rose creates for her. Rose quietly lifts her to the top of the stairs of where the door she came in from, that's on the opposite side of the room where the door to the tunnel Crocodile is occupying is, and sets her down to watch her run off.

Rose smiles in relief when she watches her escape unharmed and doesn't realize a bananadile was turning his attention back to her. She loses her smile to the sound of snarling and turns to see the bananadile take a bite at her. However, he only tasted the table that was behind her because his mouth completely phased through her air like body. Rose flies to the side to keep him from getting another chance to bite her and returns to her fight with the gators.

Once the snail shuts off, Robin turns to the noise and sees that Vivi's missing. "Looks like we have more problems than Mr. Prince."

The others turn to where Robin's looking to see that Rose is the only one fighting the bananadiles.

"What the-?! Did Vivi get eaten?!" Usopp asks, but no one can give him an answer.

Crocodile's anger continues to grow as he glares at the wind girl. "WHERE'S THE PRINCESS?!"

Rose snickers at his fury as she flies closer to the ceiling to avoid the bananadiles' jaws. "You're kind of behind on the times old man. I helped her escape a long time ago."

Crocodile furiously turns his arm into sand and reaches towards Rose, but she blows a gust of wind out of her body to push the sand away as she descends. She stands on top of a bananadile's head while two other bananadiles start surrounding them. She makes sure that she's ready to fly while she gives the warlord a smirk and the middle finger. "You're gonna have to come into the water pit if you want your sand to hit me Scarface!"

Usopp and Nami look at the girl in complete horror as they watch her flying to dodge the bananadiles, who are now tackling the one she was standing on. _*Is she trying to get herself killed?!*_

The warlord clenches his teeth at the nickname as he watches her get surrounded by four bananadiles, but he doesn't fall for the taunt as he turns around. "Ms. All Sunday, let's go. We got a pirate and a princess to find."

Robin keeps her gaze on the wind girl dodging the bananadile's in the flooding room for another second, then does as she's told. "Are you sure Mr. 0?"

Crocodile grabs a cigar from his pocket and lights it up to calm his nerves as he leads them towards the casino. "I'm positive, if her devil fruit matched her cockiness then she wouldn't be using a sword. The water will take care of her if the bananadiles don't first. Finding Ms. Wednesday along with Mr. Prince are more important right now."

Robin nods at the decision as they head off into the casino to search for Vivi and Mr. Prince.

Meanwhile, Rose is trying her best to avoid getting into the knee deep water while also avoiding being eaten by the bananadiles in the room.

She manages to dodge the bananadiles by flying up to the ceiling then grins at the group. "Just hang on a little while guys and I'll-"

She cuts herself off when she sees the marine's dark eyes fiercely glaring at her with the intent to kill. She silently gulps to herself when she realizes that she ruined her hostage act and nervously chuckles as she dodges a bananadile. "Hehe, h-hey Smoker, I didn't see you there. Now I know this looks bad, but I'll make it up to you by getting you out."

"SHUT UP YOU DAMN BRAT!"

Rose flinches at the marine's harsh words, and decides not to push her luck as she gets back to focusing on trying to get the bananadiles to show their stomachs.

Nami glares at the bananadiles and calls out to them. "COME GET US IF YOU CAN YOU STUPID CROCS!"

The guys widen their eyes at the declaration as Nami keeps yelling to them. "TRY EATING US YOU PRICKS!"

"What are you doing?!" Usopp asks as Namo turns to them.

"I'm trying to get them to break the cage."

Usopp blinks at the plan. "Good idea!"

Luffy joins in the plan as he yells out to the bananadiles. "COME HERE SO I CAN KICK YOUR ASS YOU STUPID BANANA!"

One of the bananadiles take the bait as he angrily growls at the cage. He wastes no time rushing to the cage as he takes a bite of the top of the prison.

Smoker and the crew brace themselves for the jaws to break the cage, but it never happened because instead of breaking the cell the bananadile only succeeded in breaking its teeth.

"Oh come on!" Usopp complains as the others except, for Smoker, groan in frustration. The group looks over at Rose to see that she's getting surrounding by four bananadiles.

Rose avoids a bananadile that charges her, but instead he hits a window and lets more water in. She widens her eyes at the broken window then angrily stabs the bananadile in the back with the sword to piss him off. She pulls the sword out and flies up while the bananadile agonizes from the hit. He stands on its hind legs to bite her, but she flies to the side and allows herself to hold the sword with one hand, so that she turns her free hand into wind. She uses her wind arm to blast as much wind pressure on its exposed stomach as hard as she can which sends her flying backwards, but she manages to catch herself in time to dodge another bananadile's bite. The bananadile that she managed to hit lands on his back and dry hacks from the blow, but nothing comes out.

Luffy widens his eyes at the result and calls out to Rose. "Try another banana Rose!"

Smoker scowls at the freckled girl, who's trying to get another bananadile to stand up, then looks at the next bananadile that just came into the room. He intently listens to the new reptile's growl before he calls out to the girl. "The one who ate the key is on your left!"

Zoro keeps a calm expression on his face as he stares at the marine. "How do you know?"

"My ears aren't made for decoration. He has the same growl as the one that ate the key."

Rose grins at the answer as she focuses on her new target. "Thanks Smoker!"

The marine ignores her gratitude as he and the others watch her slash the bananadile in the nose. She quickly flies up to avoid the jaws that came at her for revenge. She taunts him by sticking her tongue out and motioning her arm for him to come get her, which pisses him off even further. He quickly stands on his hind legs to reach for her along with the other bananadiles but she dives just in time to dodge the jaws of death. She quickly turns her arm into wind and blasts the bananadile that Smoker pointed out in the stomach strong enough for a dent to be made from the pressure and send him falling backwards. The force of the blast sends Rose flying backwards straight into a bananadile's jaw, but he only bites the air as she phases through his teeth.

Rose quickly flies to the side to avoid another bite and looks down to see that the bananadile that she hit was coughing from the blast. He turns his body, so that he's on his legs, and doesn't stop coughing until he finally manages to throw up the key along with a large ball of wax into the water.

Everyone tilts their head at the weird wax ball in the water that's halfway submerged in the water.

"What's with the wax?" Luffy asks, but no one can give him an answer as they stare at it.

Rose ignores the confusion as she flies over the wax ball. She turns the sword in her hands over, so that she can hit with the blunt side of the weapon, and whacks the ball to create a crack in it.

The others widen their eyes when the ball breaks open to reveal a shriveled up man with his black hair shaped like the number three and wearing a pinstripe vest along with white pants.

The pruney man raises his arms in victory for surviving from being in a bananadile's stomach. "I'm alive!" He looks around his surrounding to see the water that's hitting his lower thighs and starts drinking as if he hadn't drank anything in days.

The pirates look at him in utter shock as they realize that it's the Baroque Works agent that they fought with in Little Garden. "Mr. 3?!"

Smoker raises an eyebrow at the Baroque Works agent, that's re-hydrating by the second, but pays no mind to him as he watches Rose nonchalantly inspecting the halves of the wax ball. _*What's she doing?*_

Rose continues to pay everyone else no mind as she inspects the wax until she finds the key attached to it. "Here it is!"

She grabs the key from the wax, puts it in her pocket, then turns to Mr. 3 who just finished drinking and regained his original scrawny physique. "As for you, I need you to come with-"

She stops herself when the bananadile she attacked with her wind charges after her, but he only goes through her and collides with the wall that's behind her. Rose widens her eyes at the crash when cracks begin to form on the wall with water starting to pour inside from it, with the pressure increasing by the second. Before she can get out of the way, the water pressure breaks through the wall and crashes onto Rose.

The rest of the group widens their eyes in shock as the waterfall pushes Rose into the water. "ROSE!"

Mr. 3 can only stare at the development for a moment before he starts laughing hysterically. "Hahahaha, serves you right for Little Garden!"

Rose's head shoots out of the water as she sits up next to the new waterfall while she coughs up water and her sword still in her hand. She sees Mr. 3 laughing at her so she walks up to him, grabs his shoulder with her free hand, and hits him in the gut with the hilt of her katana. He clenches his stomach and slumps over to catch his breath, which gives Rose the perfect opportunity to grab him by the back of his shirt with her free hand and drag him towards the cage.

Mr. 3 looks at her in utter shock as he tries to free himself, but he can't escape her grip. "What the hell are you doing?!"

"Bringing a backup plan with me in case the key doesn't-!" Rose cuts herself off when she stops just in front of the cage to find Mr. 3 and herself surrounded by five bananadiles. "Oh shit!"

Mr. 3 looks at the gators in horror as Rose lets go of his shirt. She tries to shoot wind out her hands in order to fly, but nothing comes out because she's in the water. She growls in frustration, and gets her sword ready to defend herself, while the bananadiles smirk at their prey as they get ready to pounce.

"Joue shoot!" The bananadiles stop and look around in confusion for the odd voice when a sudden flash of black kicks one of the bananadiles in the cheek so hard that it instantly knocks him out.

Everyone drops their jaws when they see Sanji land in the circle with a pair of eyeglasses decorating his face. He takes a drag from his cigarette as he stands himself upright. "Have you guys been waiting long?"

Usopp and Luffy grin in excitement at the new arrival. "Sanji!"

Nami sighs in relief and looks to see Vivi's at the stairs and running towards them. "Great work Vivi!"

Vivi smiles at them as she reaches the water. "Thank you."

Sanji's eyes turn into hearts as he turns to the cage. "Nami-swaan! I'm so glad you're ok!"

Zoro groans at the love cook's lack of focus. "Hurry up and get us out of here already!"

Sanji scowls at the swordsman, but when he opens his mouth to make a comeback the sound of growls from the remaining bananadiles.

Sanji's scowl turns towards the bananadiles as he lifts his leg up to ready it for the fight. "Bring on as many as you want, you damn gators. I'll teach you to try to harm a lady!"

He charges the reptiles and starts kicking the crap out of every bananadile in sight.

Rose grins in relief that she doesn't need to worry about the bananadiles anymore as she sheathes her sword and grabs the key from her pocket. She goes to the cage to unlock it, but when she inserts the key into the slot, it doesn't fit. She tries fitting the key into the slot from various angles, but nothing works. "Shit, this key's not for the cage."

Everyone in the cage looks at the key in utter shock. "THE KEY'S A FAKE?!"

Vivi looks at the key in complete dread. "You can't be serious…"

Rose sighs then gives the pirates a carefree smile as she grabs Mr. 3 by the collar of his shirt. "Relax guys, we got a backup plan right here."

Mr. 3 looks at her in shock then scowls at her as he pulls away from her. "What makes you think I'll help you?!"

Rose casually smiles at the wax man as she grabs his shoulder with one hand then points to the bananadiles that Sanji's currently beating up. "I don't think you have a lot of options, unless you want to try getting through Sanji and the gators to leave."

Mr. 3 flinches at the option before he starts turning his hand into wax.

Rose grins at the answer as she leads him to the door. "Thanks, by the way, what happened to the painter kid that was with you?"

Mr. 3 scoffs at the casual chatter as he molds his wax hand to forge a key that will fit the lock. "The hell if I know where that traitor went! She, Mr. 5 and Ms. Valentine all ran off to leave me to deal with this!"

Rose keeps a smile on her face,at the knowledge that Ms. Goldenweek's fate wasn't altered from her sudden arrival into this world, when Mr. 3 uses the key he made to unlock the cage. The door quickly opens with the crew quickly running out of the cage.

"Finally, thanks Rose!" Luffy says as he gets out of the cell then glares at the remaining predators. "Come here you stupid bananas!" Luffy runs off out and joins Sanji in beating up the bananadiles along with Zoro.

Rose widens her eyes at how in a matter of seconds the reptiles that have been giving her a hard time were taken down. _*I know I wasn't aiming to kill when fighting them, but shit they made it look so easy. I need to train more...*_

She snaps out of her thoughts when she feels a large hand on her shoulder and slowly turns to see Smoker glaring at her. "You got anything to say pirate?"

The freckled girl quietly gulps at her situation, when she hears the sound of cracks being made in the wall, then looks up to see the wall about to give in. "First, I'm not a pirate. Second, we should be focusing on getting out of here."

She points to the cracks, with the marine and the rest of the group dropping their jaws at the cracks. They rush to make a run for it to the tunnels, but it's too late as the wall gives in and water begins to rush into the room.

Luffy and Usopp yell in shock while the others brace themselves for the blow as they get swept away by the current. Luffy coughs up water as he gets swept away before he yells to Zoro. "ZORO, MAKE SURE THAT YOU SAVE SMOKER!"

Zoro widens his eyes at the order. "WHAT?! HE'S OUR ENEMY!"

"IF WE LEAVE HIM HE'LL DIE SO HELP HIM! CAPTAIN'S ORD-" Luffy gets cut off when the current gets stronger and sends his entire body under water along with everyone else's.

Zoro reluctantly follows his captain's orders as he swims after the sunken marine. Sanji wastes no time in going after his captain, who was the closest devil fruit user to him. Meanwhile, Nami and Vivi quickly swim after Rose and grab her arms from both sides. The group wastes no time in swimming with their devil fruit user friends as they get out of the room and go towards the surface to avoid the risk of dealing with Crocodile.

Mr. 3 was completely forgotten in the rescue, but the current manages to take him to the doorways and throws him out of the room to the edge of the water. The wax man coughs up the water he swallowed from the tide as he clenches his fists. "Those damn pirates! If I ever get my hands on them I'll-"

"I've had enough of this bullshit! I'll kill them all myself!" Mr. 3 widens his eyes at Crocodile's voice and looks to see the pissed off warlord is turning a corner with Ms. All Sunday.

Mr. 3 flinches at the pissed off look on his former boss' face before he falls face first on the floor and stays completely motionless. _*Crap, with him being so pissed there's no way I'll survive a fight with him! I just gotta bide my time until I can get out of here!*_

Mr. Crocodile is so furious from not finding Mr. Prince and Vivi that he barely notices his subordinate playing dead. He reaches the edge of the water filled room to find that it's completely empty with the cage door wide open.

Robin takes a look at the room then down at the man lying on the floor next to her with his face hidden. "Looks like they used Mr. 3 to forge a key for them."

Crocodile ignores her words as a vein pops on his forehead and he turns around to leave. "They couldn't have gotten far! Let's cut them off on the way to Alubarna!"

Robin only nods as she follows her leader out of the building and completely ignores the wax man lying on the ground. Once they're out of Mr. 3's sight, he sits up and sighs in relief. "That was close. Those pirates are pretty done for when Crocodile sees them."

He looks back at the water and smirks. "Serves those bastards right for using me like that! I only wish I could watch him shrivel them up! I better get out of here while I still can."

He gets up and swiftly runs away to make his escape from the casino with no intent on pushing his luck against Crocodile any further.

* * *

The surface of the lake, that's half a mile from the casino, begins to shift as Luffy's crew begins to pull the devil fruit users out of the water. Sanji quickly manages to drag his captain onto the shore as he takes in some much needed air. "You ok Luffy?"

Luffy's only answer was him puking out as much water as possible.

Sanji sweat drops at the answer before he sighs. "You're fine."

Nami and Vivi slowly walk out of the water while they catch their breaths, and hold onto Rose's arms that are wrapped around both of their shoulders to keep her from collapsing.

Rose coughs up as much water as she can and takes a deep breath to get the air back into her lungs. _*Wow, I really can't swim anymore. I could barely move a muscle when that wave hit.*_

Once the girls make it out of the water, and onto the shore, Vivi and Nami gently set Rose down on the ground so that she's sitting up.

Vivi looks down at Rose to see that the freckled girl's still catching her breath. "Are you ok?"

Rose gives her a reassuring smile as she stays seated. "Yea, thanks for pulling me out."

Nami grins at the gratitude, then freezes when she realizes that Rose didn't fall into the pit trap with them, so she scowls at her. "Wait a minute, why didn't you run into the pit trap with us? You could've prevented us from getting stuck in that cage in the first place."

Rose feels unfazed by the scowl as she blows a light breeze out of her body to dry herself off, then points to Zoro who's dragging Smoker out of the water with Usopp following close behind. "You can thank the marine for that one. He pulled me away while you guys made a run for it. By the time I caught up to the chase, the doors to the pit trap were slammed shut and they wouldn't budge."

Smoker barely hears the complaint as the sound of his own hacking from all the water he took in drowns it out. The marine continues to cough up as much water as possible while Zoro drops him unceremoniously on the ground as he recovers.

Usopp doesn't take too much time to catch his breath from the swim as he and the others start to stand up.

Rose takes a look in her backpack and sighs in relief when she sees that the sheet took most of the water damage, and that her journal and camera don't have a lot of damage. She creates a light breeze from her hands to dry the bag, takes out her camera, then widens her eyes when she see Smoker going to strike Zoro with his jitte.

Zoro quickly unsheathes his sword and block the blow while the others look at them in shock.

Smoker narrows his eyes at the swordsman as he keeps his weapon in place. "Why the hell did you save me Roronoa?"

Zoro pushes the jitte back as he keeps a scowl on his face. "I was just following my captain's orders. He's always weird like this."

Smoker stares him down for a moment before he grips his weapon tighter. "In that case, none of you should complain when I handle my duties as a marine then right?"

Sanji sighs in disappointment as he steps up to get ready to fight. "This is why we shouldn't have saved him."

"You wanna fight Smokey?!" Luffy asks as he gets in a stance and gives Smoker one of the most serious glares he's ever made.

Smoker stares down at the serious look on Luffy's face as he remembers that this pirate made sure that he would be saved along with his friends. He sighs in exasperation as he lowers his weapon. "Go."

The group, except for Rose, was taken aback by the response while Smoker continues speaking. "I'm only going to let you go this time. The next time I see you, you're all dead."

The group begins to lower their guard when they start hearing shouts from various marines in the distance. "THERE'S STRAW HAT LUFFY AND HIS CREW!"

The groups jolts at the yelling as most of them start running in the opposite direction from the shouts.

Sanji looks over to Vivi as he keeps running. "Which way is Alubarna Vivi?!"

Vivi points to the direction ahead as she runs with the group. "This way! We need to head east."

Zoro looks at the group to see that Luffy and Rose didn't run yet. "What are you two doing?! Hurry up!"

Luffy snaps out of it as he smiles at Smoker. "Thanks Smokey, you're not so bad after all. Shishishi!"

A tick mark begins to grow on Smoker's head as he swings his jitte at Luffy so that he runs away. "GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!"

Smoker freezes at the sound of a camera going off then looks to see that Rose took a picture of him with a smile on her face as she starts floating in the air. "It really was nice to meet you. Sorry about the deceit before, and thanks for the picture."

The marine growls at her childish antics as he swings his jitte at her. "Shut the hell up you damn pirate!"

Rose quickly dodges and starts flying off as she defends her situation. "When I said I wasn't a pirate I meant it. I'm just a ride along."

Smoker stops his swinging as he tries to process what she just said as he watches her join the others. _*A ride along? What makes her think I'd believe her after that hostage act? If I ever see her again she's dead just like the rest of them.*_

He looks to see that his marine subordinates are getting close to him so he focuses his attention on them as the pirates make their escape.

Rose chuckles at the missed swings as she joins the others and lands on her feet to run with them. _*Too bad I won't be seeing Smoker again after this arc. I would've loved to have gotten into a real fight with him. Oh well, going through a high speed chase with him was pretty fun.*_

She casually shrugs with a smile as she goes into her backpack to place the camera inside while everyone reaches the edge of town.

Usopp starts panting as he tries his best to keep up with the rest of the group. "Wait, are we going to run all the way to Alubarna?!"

Nami widens her eyes at the question as she looks around. "Wait, where's Eyelashes?!"

Luffy looks back to Rose as they keep running. "Can you use the flying carpet trick again?"

Rose shakes her head as she keeps her backpack strapped. "Sorry, but the sheet doesn't have enough room for Nami and Vivi too." She pauses when she sees that there's someone missing. "Wait, where's doc?"

"I'm over here! Hey!" The others widen their eyes at Chopper's voice. They look around to find the source and pause when they see the small reindeer waving at them from the top of a crab that's as tall as a building and grinning as wide as a Cheshire cat.

"A crab?!" Usopp asks as he looks at the crustacean in utter shock.

Luffy's mouth begins to water at the sight of the large crab. "Damn, that looks tasty."

Chopper ignores the stares as he waves for them to come up. "Come on guys, let's go!"

Rose uses her wind to lift the others up into the air as she flies with them up to the top of the crab.

Nami looks at the crab's face and flinches at the creepy smile before she reaches the top. "Are you sure about this Chopper?"

The reindeer nods as he keeps the reins in his hooves turns to Eyelashes who's sitting next to him. "Yea, he's Eyelashes' friend. He was born in this town, so he has a lot of friends here and he asked this one for a favor."

Vivi blinks at the explanation as she looks down at the crab. "That's incredible, these crabs normally live underground so there are people that don't believe they exist."

Rose grins in excitement as she sets everyone on the crab's back then pats the crustacean's head. "That's awesome, let's see how fast he can go."

Chopper nods as he snaps on the reins. "Alright, let's go to Alubarna!"

The crab didn't need to be told twice as he starts moving sideways to the direction of Alubarna. The crew grins at the fast ride as they start relaxing on top of the crab.

Vivi keeps her seat at the edge of the crab as she stares at the direction to Alubarna. What she failed to notice through, was a rope of sand flying towards her from behind with a golden hook at the end of the line. It's too late for her to notice when the hook wraps around her waist and pulls her off the ride. "Aah!"

The group looks back with wide eyes to see the sand taking Vivi off the ride. "VIVI!"

"Chopper, stop the crab!" Zoro says as Chopper starts getting the reins ready.

Luffy gets up and jumps off the crab to grab onto the hook. He grabs Vivi, throws her off the hook and to the direction of the crab.

Rose quickly catches Vivi with a gust of wind and lands her on the ride while the others looks at Luffy in shock. "LUFFY!"

Luffy makes no effort to free himself from the hook as he's pulled towards Crocodile and Robin, who are standing on the ground, and he yells out of the others. "YOU GUYS GO AHEAD! I'LL TAKE CARE OF HIM MYSELF!"

Usopp widens his eyes at this. "Are you crazy?! There's two of them!"

Luffy doesn't heed his warning as he grins to his crew. "JUST GO! GET VIVI TO ALUBARNA! I CAN TAKE CARE OF THESE GUYS!"

"Idiot." Zoro says as he turns back to the reindeer. "Chopper, head straight to Alubarna!"

Chopper nervously nods as he snaps the reins. "G-got it!"

"DON'T DO THIS LUFFY!" Vivi yells as she tries to get off but Rose and Nami grab her arms to hold her back.

"It's ok Vivi, he'll make it through this!" Rose says before she looks down at Luffy who's standing on the ground in front of Robin and Crocodile while he cracks his knuckles. She narrows her eyes at the sand man as she resists her urge to go down to help Luffy out. _*I already risked a lot by trying to prevent the pit trap. He needs to do this on his own to learn about Crocodile's weakness.*_

Rose keeps a small scowl on her face as she sees that they're at a safe enough distance to let Vivi go.

Nami lets go of the princess as well and pats her on the shoulder. "If anything Vivi, I feel sorry for Crocodile and that woman. There's not a single person who's tried to fight Luffy and walk away safely. He'll do his part, so we need to go and do ours."

Vivi keeps her gaze at the direction they left behind with a small frown as she processes Nami's words. She bites her lip then takes a deep breath before she shouts back to Luffy. "LUFFY! WE'LL BE WAITING FOR YOU IN ALUBARNA!"

Luffy looks back at the crab that's getting smaller in view with a large smile while raising his fist up. "OKAY!"

The rest of the crew don't give another glance to their captain as the crab moves as fast as possible to reach the capital in time to stop the rebellion.

TO BE CONTINUED


	21. Chapter 21

Vivi, Rose, and the rest of the Straw Hats who are riding on the crab have settled down for the evening as the crab journeys through the desert to Alubarna. As soon as the crab left Rain Base, Rose decided to try to regain some of her strength by taking a nap. She uses her backpack as a pillow and lies down on her back on the center of the ride before she allows herself to drift off.

Nami looks down at the scrawny girl sleeping next to her and raises an eyebrow at her behavior. She thinks back on how hard Rose fought to get them out of the cage and decides to let her rest. _*I can't believe how reckless she is. It's one thing to not flinch when facing those bananadiles, but she taunted a warlord and called him Scarface... Reminds me of a certain captain I know...*_

She sighs in disbelief of that there's actually another living person that can be as reckless as Luffy. The redhead has a feeling that if Luffy manages to recruit the sleeping girl then they would either make a great team or a big headache, probably both. She decides not to worry about the possibility until the time comes, so she looks to see how Vivi's doing. The blue haired princess looks as worried as ever as she stares back at the path they took.

Nami sighs at the worried princess before she sits next to her. "You don't need to worry so much."

Vivi snaps out of her trance from Nami's voice then gives her an obviously fake smile. "I don't know what you mean. I'm not worried."

"That was the worst act I've ever seen." Nami says as she flicks her friend on the forehead.

Vivi rubs her forehead then sees Nami patting her on the shoulder. "You know how strong Luffy is. We'll see him before you know it."

The royal blinks at her friend's unwavering confidence in her captain before a small, genuine, smile forms on her pale face. "Alright, first we should-!"

She pauses when she remembers something important about their route to Alubarna. She quickly brings out her map from her bag and opens it up for Nami to see. "This is bad, I forgot that there's a large river up ahead!"

Nami looks at the river line on the map that they're about to encounter then looks at Vivi in confusion. "So what? Can't the crab just swim through?"

"Desert crabs can't swim!"

All the boys on the ride look at her in utter shock after they hear the new fact. "WHAT?!"

Rose isn't fazed by the crew's shouting as she continues to sleep like the dead.

Usopp quickly goes over the girls and looks at the map with his eyes bugging out. "What do you mean the crab can't swim?!"

"These desert crabs live underground. They can't stand the water!" Vivi says as she stares at the map.

Nami looks at her in confusion before looking at the crab. "But Scissors is a crab! Can't he step over the river?!"

Zoro sweat drops at the name Nami gave the crab as he mutters under his breath. "Where does she come up with these weird names?"

Usopp shakes his head. "Don't ask me, but Nami has a point. This crab's huge, can't he just step over the stream?"

Vivi sighs at the crew's reaction to her news as she shows them the map. "Sorry, but he can't. If it was a thin stream then it might work, but it's too wide. We'll be on our own from there."

Nami groans at this before she looks to see that Rose is still asleep. "Hey Rose, wake up!"

The freckled girl doesn't respond at all as she continues to soundly sleep.

Sanji looks down at the slumbering brunette with hearts in her eyes. "She's so cute even when she's sleeping!"

Zoro rolls his eyes at the chef's comment. "You're so annoying."

Sanji loses the hearts in his eyes as he glares at Zoro. "Oh shut up moss head!"

The swordsman glares back at the chef as they get ready to fight.

"Now's not the time for that!" Nami says as she grabs Rose by the shoulders and shakes her. "WAKE UP DAMMIT!"

Rose doesn't show any signs of waking up as she's shaken back and forth by the angry navigator.

Vivi looks around to see how far they are from the river, and then widens her eyes when she sees that it's coming into view. "Guys, the river's coming up!"

Nami stops shaking the freckled girl as she looks at the river in fright. "Crap, do something Scissors!"

Chopper, who has been steering the crab the whole time, widens his eyes when he thinks of a way to help them. "I got an idea; Scissors might try to swim for dancers! He loves them!"

Nami raises an eyebrow at the statement as she drops the sleeping girl on the crab, which doesn't wake her up, then starts taking her jacket off. "Like this?"

Nami completely takes her jacket off to reveal the dancer outfit that she's been hiding underneath. Sanji's eyes turn into hearts when he spots Nami's dancer outfit. "Mellorine! My dancer has returned!"

The crab's eyes turn to face the pirates when he heard the chef's celebratory cry and spots Nami. Once he sees the beautiful dancer outfit, the crab's eyes form into hearts as he runs five times faster than before.

"It worked!" Chopper says as he holds onto the reins to prevent himself from falling off.

"How will making him run faster help?!" Usopp asks as he tries to keep his balance on the ride.

Rose starts rolling towards the edge because of how fast the crab is running, but Vivi manages to grab her by the arms and drag her towards the center of the crab.

Zoro sweat drops at how even though Rose's being dragged like a rag doll she's still sleeping. "How the hell is she still sleeping?"

Sanji stares at the frequently napping swordsman blankly for the ironic comment. "You have no right to talk."

Zoro twitches an eyebrow at the comment as he goes to make a rebuttal, but he stops himself when he sees the crab approaching the water, but his legs aren't going in. "What the crap?"

Sanji looks over the edge and widens his eyes when he sees that the crab is running so fast that it's running on water. "Whoa, this crab's amazing!"

Usopp's eyes bug out when he sees the new development with his own eyes. "Holy shit, it's a miracle!"

Vivi lets go of the sleeping girl and goes to the edge. "He's actually doing it?!"

Nami looks at the crab's legs then tenses up when she sees that the legs are starting to sink. "That's your imagination! Abandon crab!"

The group looks to see that the crab's legs are quickly submerging in the water causing them to sink as well until they hit the water. Chopper grabs onto Zoro's head before they fell into the water. However, none of them were able to reach Rose in time for them to reach into the water.

Rose's purple eyes quickly open when her body met with the water. She tries to swim to the surface, but her limbs aren't listening to her as she continues to sink.

Sanji swims into the water after the wind girl and wraps his arms around Rose's shoulders. Rose's face heats up from being embarrassed of being hugged and rescued as Sanji brings her to the surface.

Once Rose's head is above the water she takes a needed breath then looks around in shock. "What the crap just happened?!" She stops when she sees the crab, that's crawling to the shore, then calms down. "Oh yea, desert crabs can't swim."

Nami twitches an eyebrow at the response as she glares at her. "If you knew that then why the hell did you go to sleep?!"

Rose widens her eyes at her slip of the tongue then awkwardly chuckles. "Hehe, my bad I forgot."

The navigator sighs at the girl's carefree attitude. "Can you at least fly us out of this?"

Rose loses her smile as she shakes her head. "Sorry, but I can't make things float out of the water."

Usopp widens his eyes at this before he turns to the princess. "How wide is this river?!"

"Fifty kilometers." Vivi says causing the sniper to look at her in shock.

"We can't swim that?!"

Zoro ignores the complaint as he starts swimming towards the other side with Chopper clinging to his head. "Just keep moving. There's no point in complaining."

The rest of the group reluctantly follows as they begin to swim when suddenly a giant catfish pops up out of the water and stares them down.

Vivi drops her jaw at the sight of the giant grey fish. "That's a Sandora Rarecat fish! It's one of the rarest fishes in Alabasta!"

Rose drops her jaw at the fish and slowly turns to Vivi. "Umm Vivi, why do I get the feeling that they eat people?"

Vivi looks at her in shock before she looks at giant fish that's opening its mouth for them. "BECAUSE THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT IT DOES!"

"YOU SHOULD'VE SAID THAT SOONER!" Usopp cries out as he starts swimming for his life with the rest of the group.

Rose groans at the fact that she has to be held in order to avoid sinking while the others swim for their life. _*Dammit, stupid water! Wait, this happened in the manga too didn't it?*_

She looks back to see the fish going after them and about to take a bite. However, before he can, he suddenly gets knocked out by a mysterious force and floats on the surface as if he's dead. She and the others look in shock to see a number of shadows swarming them just below the surface, but relief washes over them when they see that they're the kung fu dugongs that Luffy took as his pupil.

More dugongs jumped onto the catfish that they knocked out and waved their flippers for the crew to climb aboard. The group quickly gets the message and climbs onto the fish.

Sanji gently carries the pale girl in his arms out of the water and onto the fish before he sets her down. "Here you are Rose. I hope the ride wasn't too rough."

Rose gives the chef a small smile as she sits cross legged. "I can't complain, thanks for the save Sanji."

The chef blushes from the smile as he starts becoming happy drunk from the gratitude he's been given. "Of course Rose-chwaan! Anything for you!"

The wind girl sweat drops at the chef's overly happy attitude when she sees hearts flying around him. She decides it's better not to question the sight as she looks around to see the dugongs surrounding the fish.

The martial artists start pushing the fish from all angles, including pulling the catfish by the whiskers, in order to take them to the opposite side of the stream.

Chopper gets near the tip of the head to listen to the leading dugong that's speaking to the crew. "He says 'don't worry, we won't let our fellow students die. When you see master again, give him our regards.'"

Vivi raises an eyebrow at the translation. "Huh? But we're not Luffy's students."

Nami shrugs it off as she relaxes on her spot. "Doesn't matter. At least we made it."

Usopp grins as he steps to the top of the head and points ahead. "Yea, alright dugongs, let's go!"

The dugongs cheer in agreement as they bring the fish to the opposite side of the river. As soon as they make it to the Alubarnan coastline the crew's saviors bid their friends goodbye.

"Thank you!" Vivi says as she waves them off along with the others.

Zoro looks to see the capital city Alubarna in the distance, but it's miles away from where they're standing. "Think we can make it in time Vivi?"

The princess looks at the distant city then turns to Eyelashes. "I'm not sure. It might be possible with Eyelashes' help."

Rose looks at her backpack where her sheet's stored. "I could use the flying carpet trick too."

Nami looks over the camel with a hint of worry on her face. "Yea, but would we really be fast enough to-?!" She stops her question when she sees something running towards them. "What's that?"

Usopp follows Nami's gaze then starts trembling with fear as it turns out that it's a group that's coming towards them. "Is it Baroque Works?!"

Vivi widens her eyes at the group when she gets a closer look to recognize Carue along with six other ducks just like him coming towards them. "No it's not; it's Carue and the Super Spot Billed Duck Squad!"

The others look at her in shock before they see the ducks stop right in front of them and salute them.

The princess looks over the ducks in surprise before she grins at them. "This is perfect; they're some of the fastest animals in Alabasta! They can bring us there in no time!"

Nami beams with excitement as she looks at the ducks then to the crew. "Alright, I know just the plan that can get those agents distracted and Vivi protected, so listen up!"

The group looks at her in confusion, but listen intently as Nami tells them her plan to get through the battle.

* * *

At the front of Alubarna's West Gate, under the rising sun, five of Baroque Works' top agents wait for the country's princess and her pirate friends to reach them so they can finish them off.

A short middle aged woman with red hair, purple sunglasses hiding her eyes, and a necktie that resembles a Christmas tree taps her foot anxiously as she waits for her targets. "Those pirates and princess better be coming! At this rate the rebels will be here before them! I thought they wanted to stop the battle!"

A muscular, tan man with a shaved head, and wearing a sleeveless dark coat along with white pants, sighs at his comrade's impatience as he sits on the rock. "They probably won't make it in time Ms. Merry Christmas. They were stuck in Rain Base for a while after all."

A tall, pale, fat man with big lips wearing a large green shirt and black pants stands on a nearby rock and begins speaking so slow that the others don't hear him as they keep talking.

Mr. 2, who rejoined with the group as soon as he returned to Alabasta, looks at the tan man in confusion. "So if the fighting starts first then what do we do Mr. 1?"

Instead of the man being questioned answering, his partner Ms. Doublefinger takes the question for him as she pulls her cigarette out of her mouth. "We won't need to do anything then. Once the battle starts then not even the princess can do anything."

Mr. 1 nods at the answer as he lazily stares at the okama who's doing a pirouette. "Ms. Doublefinger's right. The only thing we'll need to do is kill our targets. Can't okama's even tell that?"

Mr. 2 twitches an eyebrow at the insult as he gets up in his comrade's face. "I can tell that you're asking for a taste of my okama kenpo!"

Ms. Merry Christmas ignores the argument when she suddenly feels a pain in her lower back. "Ow, my back! Mr. 4, massage it! Massage it right-!"

She stops herself when she sees that the fat man that's been trying to say something this whole is still speaking, so she listens closely to hear what his slow message is. "The'yyyrrree coommiinnngg!"

Ms. Merry Christmas drops her jaw at the announcement. "WHAT?! WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY SO SOONER?!"

Mr. 4 sweat drops at his partner's complaint as she rushes over to him. She swipes his binoculars and looks for herself to see that six people hidden in white cloaks are riding towards them on spotted bill ducks. "What the-?! Ducks?!"

Ms. Doublefinger looks at the redhead in confusion as she crosses her arms over her chest. "What are you talking about?"

"There are people riding ducks towards us! Most likely it's the princess and the pirates, but this can't be right! With Straw Hat taken care of by Crocodile there should be only five left!"

Ms. Doublefinger shakes her head at the assumption. "That's not true, didn't you listen to the boss? There's also this Mr. Prince guy that we have to deal with, so the numbers work out."

"I don't care about the numbers, but they're all wearing the same cloak! Which one's the princess?!" Mr. 2 asks as he tries to see which one's Vivi, but he can't spot their faces from under the cloaks.

Ms. Merry Christmas begins to smirk at the challenge as she turns to her partner. "Only one way to find out! Get them Mr. 4!"

Mr. 4 sluggishly nods as he grabs his bazooka and shoots a cannonball that looks like a baseball towards the group.

The duck riders quickly notice the baseball ticking and begin to split up just in time to dodge the explosion caused by the baseball.

Ms. Merry Christmas looks to see that two of them are heading to the south gate. "Leave those two to us! Come on Mr. 4!"

Her partner complies as he runs with her to chase the two duck riders.

Mr. 2 sees that two more of the duck riders are heading to another gate and runs after them. "You won't get away!"

As the okama runs after those two, Mr. 1 and his partner go after the final pair that's going through the closest gate into the city.

When Mr. 1 and Ms. Doublefinger make it into the city the duck riders stop their chase and get off the animals. The pair remove their hoods to reveal Zoro and Nami smirking at them. "Sorry, try again."

The duo widen their eyes at the wrong guess before they get ready to fight them.

Meanwhile, towards the south gate Ms. Merry Christmas and Mr. 4 manage to corner their riders.

Ms. Merry Christmas smirks at the cloaked pair who are getting off their rides. "Glad you see you know when to give up Princess!"

The hidden figures smirk at their pursuers as they remove their hoods to reveal Sanji and Chopper, in his heavy point form, under it. "Sorry, try again."

"WHAT?!" Ms. Merry Christmas shouts in utter shock while Mr. 4 slowly follows her reaction.

Ms. Merry Christmas quickly recomposes herself as she starts activating her devil fruit powers by transforming into a mole person. "I hope you're ready for a fight because you're both dead!"

As the battle between the boys and the Baroque Works agents commence, Mr. 2 manages to corner his pair of riders. The okama catches his breath as he gives them a cheeky smile. "I finally caught up to you princess!"

The pair of cloaked figures look at each other for a second then they remove their hoods to reveal Usopp and Eyelashes' faces.

Usopp snickers at the okama's surprised expression as he gets his slingshot ready. "Sorry, but wrong guess!"

Mr. 2 furrows his eyebrows at the sniper's attitude. "I'M STUCK WITH YOU CLOWNS?!"

Usopp and Eyelashes lose their confidence as they hug each other in fear. "WE'RE SORRY!"

"SORRY WON'T CUT IT! TASTE MY OKAMA KENPO!" Mr. 2 jumps into the air and proceeds to kick their asses without hesitation.

* * *

At the outside of the West Gate, that's now clear of the Baroque Works agents, Vivi, Carue and Rose look from their hiding place behind a boulder to see that it's safe for them to come out.

Vivi sighs in relief from her seat on Carue's back as she and Carue stare at the city. "I can't believe that worked."

Rose nods in agreement as she starts floating next to her. "I'm not surprised about anything with that crew anymore. Let's go find the rebels."

"Right!" Vivi snaps the reins for Carue to begin riding towards the gate that the rebels will be riding to.

Rose flies directly behind her while she grins at how the plan's turning out. * _Thank god_ _Nami planned for me to be here. Saved me the trouble of talking her into it. Not only won't I be messing with the crew's battles, but I can help Vivi get to Kohza.*_

She keeps her fists tight in excitement when they see the south gate up ahead. Vivi stops Carue just outside the gate and gets off. "From Nanohana, this is the closest gate to the city. I'm sure they'll be coming through here."

Rose turns away from the gate to see the empty desert ahead. She narrows her eyes while she puts her hand over her forehead to avoid the sun glare and sees thousands of men riding horses towards them. "I see them coming. Vivi, you know who the rebel leader is right?"

Vivi turns back to her with a raised eyebrow. "Of course I do. It would be hard to reason with him if I didn't."

Rose nods at the answer while she keeps an expecting gaze on her. "What does he look like?"

Vivi blinks at the question then looks back at the riding group heading towards them. "He has dark blond hair and a scar over his left eye. His name's Kohza."

Rose nods at the name when the troop of rebels gets close for them to tell people apart. Rose wastes no time in flying a few feet in the air before calling out to them. "HEY REBELS STOP!"

Some of the rebels hear the shout and look towards the girls when Vivi starts shouting. "LEADER, WHERE ARE YOU?!"

Kohza, who's riding in the center of his troop, widens his eyes when he hears his childhood friend's voice. When he looks ahead he sees a figure for a second before a cannon fires in their direction and hits the space in between them to create a smokescreen that blocks their view of each other.

Kohza turns to one of the rebels as he keeps riding. "Did you see some people ahead?"

"Yea, but I think I hallucinated because I saw a flying girl!"

"What?!" Kohza looks at him in confusion then looks around, but he can see nothing but smoke.

Another rebel shouts to them as he keeps riding. "Forget it, it's probably a mirage! We need to keep going!"

The leader of the rebels clicks his tongue when he feels ridiculous for believing in a flying girl then focuses on the ride ahead.

Vivi tries to see the rebels but the smoke is completely blocking their view. "On no!"

"Hang on, I'm on it! Just keep shouting!" Rose says as she flies into the smokescreen and starts creating wind out of her hands to start blowing it away. _*Damn, it's those undercover Baroque Works guys! I gotta make Kohza see her!*_

Vivi widens her eyes when she sees some of the rebels in view and starts shouting again. "LEADER, WHERE ARE YOU?! IT'S ME VIVI!"

She keeps shouting in hopes of being heard while Rose keeps blowing away the smoke. Kohza manages looks through the holes in the smokescreen and sees a blue haired girl up ahead. _*Vivi?!*_

He starts riding in the princess' direction when another cannon blows up right in front of him and knocks him backwards off his horse. He lands on his back while his horse rides away. He quickly stands up and jumps to the side to dodge one of the riders from trampling him.

"Boss!" One of Kohza's subordinates rides up towards him and grabs his arm without stopping to pull his leader on the horse.

Kohza takes the momentum and swings a leg over the horse so that he's sitting behind his subordinate. "Thanks, I owe you one!"

"Don't worry about it." The pale man that saves him says as he snaps the reins with a smirk on his face. Once he snapped the reins, the long sleeves of his shirt rides up to reveal a tattoo on his forearm of a skull, two swords crossing the skull, and the word 'Baroque' written above the skull.

The undercover Baroque Works agent keeps his head down as he rides towards the gate at an angle that will cause his fellow riders to block Kohza's view of the princess. "Those royal bastards are already shooting at us! We can't hesitate now!"

Kohza looks around to try to find the princess, but the new smoke, along with the way his savior is bringing him to the gate, is keeping him from seeing her. _*I must've imagined it!*_

The rebel leader clenches his teeth as he looks ahead. "You're right, let's ride ahead and take down Alabasta!"

The surrounding men yell in unison at the order and ride on to the gate.

Rose grits her teeth in frustration as she blows away half of the new smokescreen and sees no sign of the leader. _*Dammit, this isn't working! Wait, Vivi and Carue!*_

She widens her eyes when she remembers the trampling scene and sees Vivi still calling out to Kohza. "KOHZA, PLEASE LISTEN TO- AH!" She yells in surprise when a horse knocks her off her feet, but before she and Carue can react a gust of wind picks them up and pulls them towards her.

The men widen their eyes when they see someone being lifted, but they all play it off as a mirage and ride off to keep up with their leader.

Vivi pants from exhaustion as she's lifted right next to Rose along with Carue and sees the rebels beginning to engage in battle with the army. "This isn't good, the battle started."

"I know, come on!" Rose starts flying with her to go after the rebels.

"HEY GUYS!" Rose stops the flight, but keeps them floating as she looks to see Usopp riding towards them on a horse.

"Usopp?!" Vivi looks at him in shock as he catches up to the girls.

The sniper gets off the horse and approaches them with a big smile. "There you are! I've been looking all over for you!"

Rose frowns at the long nosed man below her as she narrows her purple eyes on him. "You're back pretty quick _Usopp_. Where's the camel you were riding with?"

Usopp quirks an eyebrow at the dark tone she used on his name before he sadly sighs. "Unfortunately, the camel didn't make it. I was only able to defeat my agent after he killed him off. Anyway, there's no time for that. Let me on your wind. We need to go before the battle gets worse!"

Vivi widens her eyes at what Usopp called Eyelashes because during the whole journey he normally called Eyelashes a 'pervy camel'. She narrows her blue eyes at the man below her as she gets ready to draw her weapons. "Usopp, prove yourself."

The sniper blinks at the command before he smiles at the girls. "You're doubting me?" He rolls his left sleeve up and only shows them the bandage. "See, I have my proof right here."

Vivi looks at him in shock for he failed the test that they set up to prove themselves.

Rose clenches her teeth at the impostor and turns her left arm into wind. "WRONG ANSWER OKAMA!" Rose sends the man impersonating Usopp flying backwards along with herself.

Rose quickly recovers and starts flying with Vivi and Carue towards the city.

The impostor is sent somersaulting back before he recovers, and touches his face with his left hand to change his face back into Mr. 2 while he's still wearing Usopp's jacket and goggles. "I don't know how you figured out that it was me, but you won't get away!"

He quickly strips off the jacket to reveal his ballerina outfit, but he keeps on the goggles that he stole from Usopp as he runs after the girls.

Rose looks back to see him running fast so she flies as fast as she can while she looks towards the stairs where the battle's taking place. She flies above the battle to see if she can find the leader. "Vivi, can you see Kohza anywhere?!"

Vivi looks towards the raging battle that's going on, but she can't tell who anyone is from the fight. "No I-!"

She screams in fright when a bullet shoots next to her head.

Rose widens her eyes at the shot then looks down to see a few rebels, with identical Baroque Works tattoos on their arms, hiding in alleyways and aiming their guns at them. "Shit!"

She quickly flies them towards the outskirts of the city right, next to the cliff, in order to avoid the shooting then lowers them down to just a few feet in the air.

"YOU WON'T GET AWAY!" Vivi freezes at Mr. 2's voice then looks over the cliff side in shock to see the okama managing to run up the cliff wall, next to the stairs to go after them.

"HOW'S THE HELL'S HE DOING THAT?!" Vivi asks, but Rose doesn't give her an answer as she flies them deeper into the city.

Mr. 2 makes it up on the cliff and sees his targets flying away. "OH NO YOU DON'T! I'VE HAD ENOUGH JOKING AROUND!"

Rose narrows her eyes at the assassin as she makes a safe distance from him, so she stops and sets Vivi and Carue down. "You two go on ahead! I'll hold off Mr. 2!"

Vivi widens her eyes at the declaration, but her face quickly changes to one of resolve as she gets on Carue's back. "Right, thank you!"

She snaps Carue's reins and quickly rides off, but instead of the direction of the battle, she's heading to the direction of the palace. _*There's no way I can find Kohza! I need to go to the palace and see Chaka! I can't give up now!*_

She looks ahead with no hesitation as she stares at the large palace. "LET'S GO CARUE!"

The large duck quacks with pride as he runs through the city as fast as his legs can take him.

Mr. 2 widens his eyes when he sees Vivi riding away and runs faster. "You're not getting a- WAH!"

He yelps in shock when a gust of wind lifts him up and sends him flying to his left to crash through a door. He staggers up and walks out of the building to see Rose cracking her knuckles as she lands a few feet in front of him.

The freckled girl smirks at the ballerina man as she gets in a stance. "If you want the princess then you gotta go through me."

Mr. 2 shudders at the look in her eyes, that shows that she's itching for a fight, but he quickly recomposes himself as he gets in his stance. "If that's all I gotta do then it will be no problem. Taste my okama-!"

His rant gets interrupted when he suddenly gets kicked to the side by Sanji and sent flying through a building.

Rose blinks at the interruption when Sanji glares at the hole in the wall that the okama went through. "I finally found you, you bastard!"

Rose quietly sighs in disappointment in that she can't fight him now. _*Oh well, it wasn't my fight to begin with. Wait, maybe now I can find Kohza and bring him to the castle!*_

Sanji turns to Rose with heart in his eyes. "There you are Rose! That okama didn't hurt you did he?"

She ignores his flirting attitude as she grins at him. "No, I was about to kick his ass when you came in. You can have him though."

"You're so kind! I'll be glad to-" Sanji stops his rant when he finds that she's alone then searches for the princess. "Where's Vivi?!"

She creates a gust of wind for herself then turns away and leaves. "She went on ahead. I'll go catch up to her."

"Alright, be careful!" Sanji waves her off with a goofy grin on his face.

Mr. 2 groans from his aching head as he gets up and walks out of the hole in the wall. "What the hell was that?!"

Sanji loses his smile as he remembers his enemy then charges at him. "You stole my friend's goggles! Give them back!"

The chef throws a roundhouse kick at the okama's head, but he quickly blocks with a roundhouse kick of his own.

Mr. 2 sees the new face that he never saw when he was on the Merry, and narrows his eyes at him. "And who the hell are you now? Wait, you must be the Mr. Prince that Crocodile told me about!"

Sanji smirks at the name as he lowers his leg and gets ready for another kick. "No, my name's Sanji. I'm a first rate pirate cook."

Mr. 2 narrow his eyes at the introduction before he gets back into a stance. "In that case, let's see if you can beat a first rate okama!"

Sanji and Mr. 2 share no more words as they battle it out without holding back.

* * *

Rose flies towards the center of the city where the sounds of steel clashing and gunshots fill the air. She grimaces at the smell of blood, gunpowder, and steel that's growing stronger as she gets closer to the battle, but she ignores it as she focuses on her task. Once she reaches the fight, she flies higher to get a better look of the battle from a bird's eye view. _*Alright, where are you Koh-?*_

She snaps out of it when a bullet phases through her stomach. She sees the source to be the undercover agents posing as rebels in an alleyway with guns in hand, and glowers at them. "You first!"

The fake rebels flinch under Rose's glare as they see her flying towards them.

She gets ready to send them flying when real soldiers from the royal army find them and attack them. The wind girl groans in frustration of not getting a decent fight for herself, as she stops the wind on her arm. "I don't have time for this crap!"

The warriors closest to her stop their fighting and look at the flying girl in shock as she keeps searching for the rebel leader. She ignores the stares, when she sees that he's nowhere in the area she flies further into the city in hopes of finding him. The men that were frozen from watching the girl fly around, from both the rebel and soldier side, look at each other in confusion.

"You saw that too right?"

"Yup…"

The men stare at the girl's path for another moment before they come back to their senses and return to the fight.

Meanwhile, she flies over the battle and heads towards the center of the town where the rebels are fighting to advance their troops further into the city. She sees the rebels, but none of them holds Vivi's description until she spots a slightly muscular man with dark blonde hair fighting the hardest to advance. The most noticeable part of the bronze skinned man is the scar just above his left eye that's partly hidden by his purple sunglasses.

She grins in satisfaction when she sees Kohza taking cover at the remains of a broken building to catch his breath while his subordinates cover for him.

One of the rebels blocks a soldier's sword strike with his own sword, and doesn't hesitate to knock him out with a kick to the head before he turns to his leader. "Leader, are you alright?"

Kohza nods as he regains his breath. "I'll be fine. Listen, I need to steal a horse. If we can get through the center of town we can make it to the North entrance of the palace."

The rebel widens his eyes at the plan. "What?! What are you going to do?!"

"I'm going to make Cobra surrender!"

"Don't be stupid! The army will be waiting at the North entrance! Look, we should stand our ground until the supporting towns show up. There's no need to run ahead without backup!"

Kohza clenches his teeth in frustration at the options he's given. "It'll be too late then!"

"My thoughts exactly." The boys stop their bickering at the feminine voice above them and lift their heads to see Rose grinning down at them.

The boys jump back in shock when they see that she's floating on air just a few feet above the ground.

The rebel next to Kohza grabs his pistol and points it at her. "W-what the hell are you?!"

Rose casually shrugs while not reacting in the slightest to the gun pointed at her. "Just a traveler, I'm also friends with Princess Vivi. We tried to meet with your leader in front of the gate, but those smokescreens blocked us."

Kohza widens his eyes at the explanation, when he remembers seeing the princess and thought he imagined her. However, that doesn't change his experience with the incidents that have lead up to the rebellion, so narrows his eyes at the flying girl and grabs the hilt of his sword. "And why go to the trouble of seeking me out?"

"It's easier if I show you." She creates a gust of wind to start lifting Kohza into the air.

Kohza's subordinate screams in terror before he grabs his leader's leg to pull him down, but Rose blasts wind out of her hand to pin him to the wall, so he'll let go of him.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!" Kohza throws a punch at the girl, but she ducks and starts lifting the two of them higher into the air while she releases her hold on his subordinate.

The surrounding rebels and soldiers stop their fighting as they drop their jaws at the sight of Rose flying away with Kohza.

"SHE KIDNAPPED THE LEADER!"

"IS SHE FROM THE ROYAL ARMY?!"

"WE'VE NEVER SEEN HER BEFORE!"

Rose looks back to see the men arguing amongst themselves before they get back to fighting. _*At least they stopped fighting for a second.*_

She shrugs off the thought before she has to duck in order to dodge another one of Kohza's punch, and continues to dodge his blows as she starts taking him to the palace. "Would you relax? You're friend's fine. You said you wanted to go to the palace right?"

"Not as a flying target for the royal army! Is this Cobra's plan because my men won't give up if I die!" Kohza says as he keeps trying to punch and kick her, but Rose easily dodges the blows.

After dodging the fifth blow, Rose twitches an eyebrow before she punches him on the head. "Knock it off! I'm working on my own to help stop the war, so shut up and let me take you to the palace!"

Kohza rubs his aching head and calms down from her outburst. "You're working on your own?"

Rose nods as she looks towards the palace. "Vivi and I had to split up when an assassin came after us. She's probably trying to resolve the conflict in her own way like blowing up the palace."

The rebel leader widens his eyes at the guess before he narrows his eyes at her. "If she wants to stop the fighting then why didn't she stop her father from-?!"

He cuts himself off when an arrow flies in front of his face then he looks down to see a group of royal soldiers aiming at them. Rose sees the soldiers, so she moves in between them and Kohza and creates a gust of wind to send the archers flying backwards.

She quickly cancels out the gust, that's sending the soldiers flying, then works to get Kohza and herself flying faster. "Like I said before, it's easier to show you what's going on instead of trying to explain."

Kohza stares back at the soldiers she sent flying, but he still keeps his guard up. "Very well, I'll go, but if I don't like what I see then I won't show mercy."

"Didn't think you would." She sees that the palace is just up ahead then descends so that they're below the balcony's level. As she takes them towards the palace, they both look down to see that the royal soldiers are rushing to the door.

"CROCODILE'S IN THE PALACE?!"

"BREAK DOWN THE GATE! WE HAVE TO SAVE THE PRINCESS!"

Kohza raises an eyebrow at the soldiers' urgency to break down their own gate. "Did they just say Crocodile? As in the country's hero?" He widens his eyes when he sees a group of hands growing from the gate doors to knock the soldiers at the top of the stairs off their feet, so that they fall down the steps and take their comrades with them. "What the hell?!"

Rose widens her eyes at the site then stops them just below the edge of the right side of the balcony and speaks softly. "The answers are on the balcony. Just stay quiet and watch for now."

Kohza freezes at the seriousness in her eyes then slowly nods as he and the wind girl slowly lift their heads to see the scene going on.

The rebel leader widens his eyes in pure shock, not because he sees Vivi, Crocodile, Robin and Chaka together, but because he sees the king of Alabasta wounded with pins stabbing his arms to the wall to keep him from collapsing. _*What the hell?! Did Crocodile do this?!*_

Kohza and Rose silently watch as Cobra lifts his head to see his daughter's face in distress for seeing her father like this. "Vivi, I'm sorry. You risked your life to give this country a chance, but I failed."

Vivi's eyes fill with sadness at her father's words, but she doesn't let them get to her. "It's not your fault Father! Crocodile's the one who caused the drought!"

Crocodile chuckles at the statement as he keeps an easy going smirk. "Even though I caused the droughts. It was too easy to start a war here. Shows how weak this country is."

The rebel leader's mind barely has time to process what he's hearing as he stares at the scene with horrified eyes. _*What?! What about the rain powder?! Didn't Cobra himself confess to stealing the rain?!*_

The leader continues to stay quiet while Chaka growls at the warlord as he sees him going towards the king. "Stay away from his highness Crocodile!"

The pirate ignores the order as he approaches his royal prisoner. "Now king, before you lose the throne tell me. Where's Pluton?"

Most of the group, with the exception of Rose and the Baroque Work agents, look at him in confusion, but Cobra stares at the man in front of him in horror. "H-how do you know that name?!"

The warlord chuckles at the shock he's receiving. "Does it matter how? I heard that using it just once can obliterate an entire island. I also heard that it sleeps somewhere in this country."

Vivi widens her eyes at the explanation. "Something like that exists here? And you knew father?"

"It must be a secret that's passed down in the royal family…" Chaka says with hesitation.

"Quite right you are." Crocodile says before he turns to Vivi with a smirk on his face. "You asked me why I'm trying to take the country once. Well, I'll tell you. It's so that I can obtain the weapon and build a military country right here."

Vivi's looks at him in complete terror as she tries to process his reason. "You did all this to build a military country?"

"That's right, once I have that weapon, I can build a perfect utopia here."

Cobra gives the sand man the best look of defiance that he could in his position. "I don't know how you'll obtain it, because I don't know where it is. I don't even know if it still exists here or not."

Crocodile chuckles at the small resistance while he takes a cigar from his pocket and lights it up. "What you say probably isn't a complete lie. I did consider that possibility as well, but I believe that it still exists."

He pauses when he hears the soldiers screaming on the outside of the wall to try to get in, but the doors still won't budge. "What a noisy bunch. If my timing's right the rebel army should reach here in approximately twenty minutes. Then in about half an hour from now at 4:00. The battle will finally end with the cannon I plan to fire into the square."

Every none Baroque Works agent looks at the warlord in horror in what he just said as he keeps going. "Not just a regular one either. This will destroy anything in a five kilometer radius. Neither the rebels nor the royal army will survive. You should be happy Ms. Wednesday, this fighting will finally stop thanks to this."

"Who would be happy about that?!" The group pauses at Kohza's voice to see the rebel leader grabbing onto the edge of the balcony and climbing up.

"Kohza?!" Vivi looks at him in shock then sees Rose flying over the edge after him.

Robin giggles at the intruders as she makes no move to stop them. "Looks like we have some unwanted guests."

"No matter." Crocodile says as he chuckles at the rebel. "Things are getting interesting."

"Shut up!" Kohza says as he tries to hold back his rage.

Vivi looks at him softly. "How much did you hear?"

"I heard the whole thing! Is it true?! Did Crocodile really do this?!"

Vivi slowly nods before she furiously stares at Crocodile. "Yes it is, Crocodile's the one who started it all."

"And I intend to finish it with the bomb." Crocodile says before he turns to the king. "However, I might change my mind if you answer another question for me. Where's the poneglyph?"

Cobra widens his eyes at the question, but shows no fear as he answers. "If you spare my people. I'll tell you where it is. I'll even show you."

The warlord's smirk grow at the answer. "Just what I'd expect from a king."

Chaka's patience grows too thin as he grabs the handle of his sword. "I've had enough…"

"That makes two of us!" Kohza says as he unsheathes his sword.

"No Kohza, don't fight him!" Cobra says causing the boy to turn his attention to him. "Please, I need you to save as many lives as you can before the cannon goes off!"

"He's right, warn as many people as you can! I'll buy you as much time as possible!" Chaka says before he activates his devil fruit abilities and transforms into a human jackal. He rushes to fight the sand man to give him as much time to escape as possible.

Kohza stares at the fight with hesitance for a moment before he runs to go warn the citizens, but Vivi blocks him off. "Wait!"

"I don't have time!" Kohza says as he tries to run past her, but the princess grabs his arm. "What are you doing?!"

Vivi keeps holding him back with as much force as possible. "You have to listen! If we tell the people about the cannon it'll only cause a panic! And even if we stop the cannon, it won't stop the fighting!"

Kohza stops his struggles at the girl's words while she holds him back with trembling arms. "What we need to do is what should've been done from the beginning and stop the rebellion! You're the only one that can do it!"

Kohza stares at her for a brief moment before he gently takes her arm to get her to let go of him. "Alright."

Vivi grins at the plan while Crocodile transforms into sand to get past Chaka, re-materializes right behind them, and raises his hook to strike. "If you think I'd just let you do as you please then you're sadly mistaken."

Rose flies over to stop them, but before she can do anything Chaka blocks the blow with his sword. "I won't let you lay a hand on them! You two go now!"

Before either of them can say anything Rose picks them up with her wind and flies them out of there.

Crocodile sighs in frustration as he turns into sand. "You're all idiots."

Before he can fly after them, Chaka slashes through the sand. "I won't let you pass."

"Fine, then you're first!" Crocodile says as he returns to his battle with the elite royal guard.

Meanwhile, Rose manages to fly them over the wall. "So we just need to stop the rebels and find the cannon?"

Vivi nods to the plan as they start descending. "That's right. Put me down at the top of the wall."

"Alright." Rose complies to the demand as she sets her down on the wall.

Vivi looks down at the soldiers at the square then calls down to them "MEN, PREPARE THE WHITE FLAGS! WE NEED TO SURRENDER!"

The soldiers down below look at her in complete shock, but not nearly as shocked as when Rose lands Kohza on the staircase. She quickly descends into an alleyway in order to hide. _*Once I make sure the cease fire's ok, I'll get rid of the bomb.*_

She makes sure that she stays hidden while Kohza calls out to them. "EVERYONE LISTEN, MY MEN DON'T WANT VICTORY ANYMORE! I'M GOING TO TELL MY MEN TO STOP! PLEASE, I NEED YOU TO RAISE THE WHITE FLAG!"

The soldiers stare at him for a short moment, but the look in his eyes shows that he's completely serious. They waste no time in getting the white flags ready while Kohza joins the crowd.

He grabs a white flag of his own and stands on a statue, that looks similar to a closed off vase, in the middle of the square with the soldiers standing behind him.

As soon as the soldiers are set with their flags raised up high, the rebel soldiers run into the square. Once they see the white flags flying in the air, they look towards their leader in shock.

"Kohza, what's going on?!" One of the rebels asks.

Kohza answers by waving the white flag and calling out to them. "LISTEN, ALL OF YOU! THE WAR IS OVER! LAY DOWN YOUR WEAPONS, WE DON'T NEED TO FIGHT ANYMORE!"

Rose looks from her spot in the alleyway that gives her a view of both sides of the war with Kohza in the middle. She starts to grin when she sees the revolutionaries settling down, but widens her eyes when she sees a member of the royal army, with a Baroque Works tattoo on his arm, take out his gun. _*Crap!*_

She quickly throws a punch in Kohza's direction to blast wind out of it, and throws him off the statue just before the gun was fired. Kohza looks back at the missed shot, that almost hit him, as he falls onto the ground.

The rebels freeze at the attempted shooting before fury begins to overwhelm them again.

"KOHZA!"

"BASTARD, WHY DID YOU SHOOT HIM?!"

Kohza widens his eyes at his men's anger as he stands up. "WAIT, IT'S NOT WHAT YOU THINK! DON'T-!"

He stops to cover his eyes when sand begins to fly around the area and cloud the area so that both sides are shrouded in sand.

"Shit!" Rose creates a strong gust of wind from her hands to clear out the sandstorm. However, no matter how many times she tries to blow the sand away, more sand returns to cloud the area.

Gun shots can be heard from both sides of the war which only raises the tension between the two enemies.

"SO THE WHITE FLAG WAS A RUSE?!" A rebel asks when he sees his comrade get shot in the shoulder while the other side starts receiving bullets from the Baroque Works agents in the rebel side.

The royal soldiers widen their eyes when they see a few of their comrades collapsing from getting shot. They begin to draw their weapons and charge them with rebels wasting no time in following their example as they resume the battle at full force.

Kohza widens his eyes at the how things are progressing as he gets up. "WAIT, STOP!"

He runs to try to stop them when he's confronted by another royal soldier, with a Baroque Works tattoo on his arm, that's pointing a spear at him. "Sorry, but you're not going anywhere!"

"What?!" Kohza quickly unsheathes his sword to block the spear and defends himself while the battle rages on.

Rose flies up to escape the sandstorm and wipes the sand from her eyes. She looks down to see that the battle is covered in the sand cloud, then looks at the top of the wall to see Crocodile holding Vivi by the collar of her jacket, and dropping her over the wall. She goes to fly after her when she sees Crocodile's arm turn into sand and flies towards her. She quickly blows the sand away to protect herself as she sees Vivi falling.

When the princes is halfway towards the ground she looks up in shock to see a large brown falcon, wearing a white robe with star motifs, flying towards her with Luffy on his back. "VIVI!"

Crocodile widens his eyes when he sees the man he fought in Rain Base is still alive, so he stops the sand he's using to attack Rose. "WHAT?!"

Rose grins in relief when she sees the pirate captain stretch his arm towards the falling princess and pulls her onto the falcon. _*Good, Pell and Luffy came in. Now's a good time to get rid of the bomb.*_

Rose sees the tall clock tower near the square, flies towards the top of the building that has a clock on each side of the tower, and floats up so that she's eye level to the clock. _*If I remember right, one of these clocks opens like a door.*_

She goes to the first clock that's facing the palace and pulls at the edge as if it's a door, but it won't budge. She goes to the second clock that's facing the town and starts to pull on it as hard as she can. She starts smiling when she sees that the clock is moving, but it disappears when she sees a frog shaped gun at the opening and is pointing at her head.

"That's far enough ribbitribbitribbit!"

Rose quickly descends before the shot was fired and dodges the bullet.

Mistaking the shot to be a hit, the sniper woman wearing a froggy hat along with a froggy shirt and skirt, that hits her knees, laughs in victory. "Ribbitribbitribbit, that was the easiest shot ever! This final assignment is really exciting, don't you agree Mr. 7?"

The short pale man next to her, with puffy white hair, and the number seven decorating not only his clothes, but is also the shape of his eyebrows laughs in agreement. "Ohahahaha, quite right Ms. Father's Day. We have less than fifteen minutes until we can set off the cannon. How shall we celebrate?"

"How about by getting your asses kicked?" The two Baroque Works agents stiffen up at the voice by the open clock and turn to see the flying girl giving them the most frightening glare they've ever seen.

The agents step back in fear as Rose cracks her knuckles and steps into the tower. "Now that you took your shot, I hope you don't mind me returning the favor."

Mr. 7 regains his nerves as he points his gun at her. "DON'T MESS WITH US!"

Rose flies up to dodge his shots and unsheathes the sword, that she stole from Crocodile's casino, while the frog loving woman aims her gun at her. "DIE!"

She fires the gun at her three times, but Rose flies right above them to dodge the shots and turns the sword around so she's fighting with the flat side. "Sorry, but I'm not dying."

She quickly descends right in front of them, whacks Mr. 7 in the nose with the blunt side of the sword, and knocks him out before he can react.

Ms. Father's Day widens her eyes at the assault as she aims her gun at her. However, before she can shoot Rose swings her leg up to kick the gun out of her hand then throws a back kick with the other leg to shoot wind out of her foot. The wind sends her flying backwards until she hits the wall and collapses.

The female agent sees that her gun landed next to her and reaches for it, but before she can touch it Rose uses her sword to stab through the weapon. The assassin shakes in fear as she looks up at the brunette standing above her with a frightening look in her eyes. She goes to her last result and begs for her life. "P-please don't kill me! I don't want to die!"

Rose quietly sighs at the plea as she takes her sword out of the impaled weapon, then turns around to face at the cannon. "Take your partner and get out."

The agent quickly nods with a large smile. "Oh thank you!"

Rose doesn't give the woman another glance as she walks to the back of the cannon to cut off the ignition rope as a precaution. "Don't thank me, just go."

The agent only nods as she crawls over to her partner, but instead of picking him up, she grabs his gun. "Of course, we'll leave right now. After you die freak!"

The wind girl freezes at the sound of a gunshot and looks down to see the wind hole in her chest from when the bullet phased through her, and hit the wall in front of her.

The agent looks at Rose in utter shock as she watches her chest return to normal, and drops the gun. "Y-you're a logia user just like-?!"

She cuts herself off when she suddenly feels a gust of hot air hit her, and slowly trembles to see that Rose is the source as she pierces her with her glare.

Rose leaves the cannon alone as she sheathes her sword and starts walking toward the woman while she cracks her knuckles, all the while with a light gust of hot air blowing out of her. "You got a lot of nerve bitch…"

Ms. Father's Day can barely move under her purple eyed gaze as her opponent approaches her. "W-why did you sheathe your sword?"

Rose grabs her by the collar of her shirt so that she's looking her straight in the eye. "So I can take you down with my own hands!"

The agent quickly closes her eyes as Rose lands a left hook to the face, knees her in the gut and then uses her wind to lift her up and slam her back to the wall behind her. After the hit, the Baroque Works agent slumps to the floor and falls unconscious.

After seeing that she's not going to attack her anymore, Rose calms down and loses her mood breeze. She looks around in confusion as she wipes the sweat off her forehead. _*Why does it feel hotter than normal in here?*_

She shrugs it off then looks down to see the gun that Ms. Father's Day used on her. She unsheathes her sword and stabs the weapon so that it can't hurt anyone else again.

While she's breaking the gun, she fails to notice the large falcon that brought Luffy to the city is peeking inside through the crack in the clock. _*Is she one of the princess' friends? In any case, I better go find her and tell her where the cannon is!*_

Pell flies off to go find the princess while Rose looks back to the opening in the clock. When she sees no one there, she shrugs it off and goes to the back of the cannon. She unsheathes the sword and wastes no time to cut off the ignition rope. Once that's done, she sheathes her weapon and goes to the front of the cannon where the bomb is stored. _*Alright, all I gotta do is take the bomb and bring it to the sky.*_

She takes a closer look to see that she has about four minutes before the bomb goes off. "Perfect! More than enough time!"

She leans her upper body into the cannon to reach for the bomb and pull it out, but it's too heavy. She lets go of the bomb and gets out of the cannon. She gets ready to use her wind when the clock behind her slams open. She turns around to see Vivi riding on the bird man's back along with Zoro and Nami.

As the group lands in the room, Nami widens her eyes at the sight of Rose in front of the cannon and the two Baroque Works agents knocked out at the corner of the room. "What the hell happened?!"

Rose sighs as she points to cannon. "Long story short: I found the cannon, beat up the agents, and found out that the cannonball is a time bomb, so I'm gonna bring it to the sky so that no one gets killed."

Vivi widens her eyes at the explanation before she goes to the front of the cannon and sees that she's right. She looks at the bomb with small bits of despair when she sees that there's only a few minutes left.

She snaps out of it when Rose pats her on the shoulder with an easygoing smile then leads her away from the cannon's entrance. "Relax, there's more than enough time to get rid of it."

Pell steps up and motions for her to step aside. "If anyone should take it, it should be me. I can fly it away from town."

Rose quickly shakes her head as she uses her wind to pull the bomb out of the cannon and make it float a few feet in the air. Pell drops his jaw at the sight while Rose creates a gust of wind for herself to float on. "Sorry, but I can too. I can throw it away when I'm high enough so I'll be fine. You guys just focus on ending this fight."

She flies out of the clock tower with the bomb before any more words can be said. Vivi, Pell and the pirates, both on the clock tower and on the street, look at her in shock as she keeps ascending into the air.

"She's crazy..." Nami says as she watches Rose starting to fly above the clouds.

Zoro follows the wind girl's path for a second before he looks down at the battle below. "True, but that was the best option. So what now?"

Vivi looks down at the rebels and soldiers who are still fighting in the square. "We need to stop the fighting!"

Pell nods as he motions for Vivi to get on his back. "Let's go then."

Vivi nods as she, Zoro, and Nami get on Pell's back and return to the ground to do what they can to stop the war.

Meanwhile, Rose continues to fly higher into the sky with the bomb by her side. She looks down at the town below that keeps growing smaller as she continues to fly. She hums at the distance that she made from the ground that could kill a person if they fall from here. _*Man that's steep. Makes me wonder how Pell managed to survive the explosion in the first place.*_

She shrugs it off and looks at the time bomb to see that she has only one minute left until it explodes. She lifts the bomb up further without flying with it, then lifts her right arm up and starts turning it into wind. She releases the wind holding both the bomb and herself, and falls with the bomb ten feet above her when she makes the wind in her arm as strong as possible. She manages to make it so strong that it stops the bomb from falling and starts lifting it up again, but it forces her to fall faster. She grins at the increasing distance that she's making for herself and the bomb when she sees that the bomb has less than thirty seconds left. _*Crap, how long is five kilometers?! I gotta fall faster!*_

She lifts her left arm up and blasts wind from her left arm to help her increase the distance faster as she watches the clock ticking to three seconds. _*three, two, one!*_

She closes her eyes and braces for impact when she hears the deafening sound of the bomb exploding in the sky. She escapes the explosion, but the pressure of the blast rings throughout the air and hits her like having a two ton weight thrown at her. The force is too strong for her to fight against it and sends her flying towards the town. She braces for impact, when Pell flies behind her in his falcon form, without any passengers, to help break her fall by letting her crash into his stomach and get sent flying with her through a glass window on the fifth floor of a building. Rose opens her eyes as the soft crash when she finds herself somersaulting with the bird man into the room until they crash into a large bookshelf, which forces both the shelf and all the books to fall onto them.

Once the last book falls on the mountain of literature burying them, topped by the shelf, Rose breaks the pile by sitting up. She slowly pushes the shelf off the pile so it hits the floor, then rubs her aching head. "Ack, damn, that was nuts! What did I crash into any-?!"

She stops talking when the book mountain moves again to reveal Pell in his human form as he groans and slowly sits up next to her while he rubs his head. She widens her eyes at the bird man when she figures out what happened. "Oh shit, are you ok?!"

Pell raises an eyebrow at the concerned girl. "I should be asking you that. You took the force of the explosion."

"Yea, but I crashed into you! Wait, where are Vivi and the others?!"

"They're working to stop the rebellion right now."

Rose widens her eyes at this before she tries to stand up, but she's having a hard time because of her exhaustion.

Pell looks at the slightly panting girl in shock as he watches her stumble until she leans on the wall for support. "What are you doing?!"

She keeps her upper body against the wall as she stands herself up. "I gotta get back to the fight."

Pell sweat drops at the answer as he watches her slowly walk away with the wall as support. "You can't fight in your condition!"

"I know that, but I can at least see it end!" Rose says as she forces herself to walk with trembling legs and fights the urge to collapse.

Pell can only watch the stubborn girl walk off for a moment before he forces himself to stand up. He goes next to her and wraps his left arm around her shoulders to keep her from falling. "Let me take you there."

Rose widens her eyes at the aid, but she doesn't have any room to argue in her condition. She nods with small smile as she wraps her right arm around his back, so she can walk with him, and lets him lead her out. "Thanks, I appreciate it."

"I should be thanking you for helping our country." Pell says as he brings her to the first floor. Once they make it out the door, both warriors widen their eyes to see the sandstorm that was clouding the square is long gone, and replaced by a downpour.

Rose looks up at the rain clouds with a smile as she lets the raindrops hit her. _*Luffy won his fight!*_

She looks to see that both the rebels and the royal army have dropped their weapons, at the sight of the storm, with large smiles and tears in their eyes from the relief of the pain they had to endure from Crocodile. _*The arc's really over now...*_

Rose's eyelids begin to grow heavy while Pell looks up at the rain with a small grin and tears in his own eyes. "The drought's finally over. Come, we should find the others."

He starts walking, but stops when the weight under his arm increases and the arm holding onto him falls limp. He looks to see that the wind girl finally gave in to her exhaustion and fell unconscious, with a small smile, so he wraps an arm around her torso to keep her body from hitting the ground. He bends down and shifts her body onto his back before he grabs her legs and lets her head rest on his shoulder. "The rebellion's truly over now."

He stands up with the girl on his back and brings her to the palace for treatment, while the rest of the citizens begin to work on restoring their country with new hope for the future.

TO BE CONTINUED


	22. Chapter 22

**_A/N: Hey everyone, well here it is: the beginning of the arc's end. I want to thank you all for your patience this far. As I've mentioned before, there is a method to my madness._**

 ** _I hope you enjoy the suspense. :)_**

* * *

 _On a warm afternoon in Central Park, a twelve year old Rose, wearing a t-shirt and shorts, is playing an acoustic guitar for the tourists. The skinny preteen doesn't pay any attention to the world around her as she smiles and sings the ending of 'Friend Like Me' from Aladdin._

 _So don'tcha sit there slack-jawed, buggy-eyed~  
I'm here to answer all your midday prayers~  
You got me bona fide, certified~  
You got a genie for your chargé d'affaires~  
I got a powerful urge to help you out~  
So what-cha wish?~  
I really want to know~  
You got a list that's three miles long, no doubt~  
Well, all you gotta do is rub like so - and oh~  
Mister Aladdin, sir, have a wish or two or three~  
I'm on the job, you big nabob~  
You ain't never had a friend, never had a friend~  
You ain't never had a friend, never had a friend~  
You ain't never had a friend like me~_

 _She happily laughs and plays the last chords before she sings out the last line._

 _You ain't never had a friend like me, hah!~_

 _She hits the final chord and chuckles before she snaps out of it to the sound of applause from her small audience. She awkwardly bows to the crowd of five as they drop tips in the open guitar case in front of her. When she lifts her torso, her smile quickly fades when she sees a cop coming towards her._

 _"Oh crap!" She curses under her breath as she scrambles to pack up the guitar after the tourists left, but it was too late as the cop reaches her._

 _The muscular blond police officer, in his twenties, raises an eyebrow at the child he found playing. "Weren't you the kid I let off with a warning in Time Square last week?"_

 _Rose widens her eyes at the cop to see that he is the guy that ruined her performance last week. She scowls at the tall man as she picks up the side handle of her school's thick guitar case. "That was you?! Why do you keep showing up when I play?! Are you a stalker or something?!"_

 _The cop widens his dark brown eyes at the accusation. "I'm not a stalker you brat! You keep playing when I'm on patrol! Wait, that's not the point! I told you that you can't street perform without a per-!"_

 _He stops himself when he gets a closer look at the short, skinny, kid and notices a slightly dark bruise on her left cheek, along with a few on her arms and legs. He scowls at the marks as he looks down at her. "Where did you get those bruises?"_

 _She tenses at the mention of the bruises, that she received from her foster dad, before she mirrors his stern facial expression. "You ask a lot of questions for a stranger! You really are a stalker!"_

 _"No I'm not, you-!" He stops himself from saying anything rash and takes a deep breath to calm down. He gives her a small smile and tries for the good cop approach. "Hey, why don't we start over? My name's Robert, as you can see I'm a police officer and NOT a stalker. So what's your name?"_

 _She chuckles at the forced introduction as she plays along by extending a hand out for him to shake. "My name's Rose, nice to meet you Bobby."_

 _Robert does his best to keep his smile on, while his right eyebrow twitches from the nickname, as he shakes her hand. "It's nice to meet you too. So what happened to cause those bruises?"_

 _"I fought an asshole." Rose says bluntly with the policeman dropping his jaw at the swearing._

 _"Don't go cursing like that! Who did you fight with to get those bruises?!"_

 _Rose chuckles at the question with a cheeky smile. "Sorry, but that's a secret. I don't see what the big deal is. A lot of warriors show off their battle scars, so why can't I?"_

 _Robert furrows his eyebrows at the dodged answer before he grabs her free wrist and starts walking with her._

 _Rose stumbles after him as she tries to pull her arm free, but his grip's too tight. "Hey, what the hell are you doing?!"_

 _"I'm taking you to the station and calling your parents!"_

 _Rose widens her eyes in fear of him finding out about her foster family, and sending her to an even worse place, so she swings the guitar case to whack him on the shin. He yelps in pain as he clutches his leg and lets go of the child._

 _Rose runs a few feet away from him then glares at him. "Leave my parents out of this Bobby! I'm not going anywhere with some police stalker!"_

 _"My name's not Bobby and I'm not a stalker!" He drops his knee before he grabs his ticket booklet from his belt. "If you won't come with me then you have to pay the fine for street performing without a permit. You also need your parents' signature for this ticket since you're a minor."_

 _Rose looks at the distracted cop blankly before she backs up a few steps to create more distance between them. "No thanks."_

 _Robert stops writing his ticket then narrows his eyes at the little freckled girl. "Excuse me?"_

 _She straps her case onto her back with a smirk before she sticks her tongue out. "If I don't get the ticket then I can't pay right? So I'm not taking it unless you catch me! Later Bobby!"_

 _She runs away and leaves the cop flabbergasted for a moment before he runs after her. "GET BACK HERE YOU LITTLE SHIT!"_

 _The sound of the freckled girl's laughter fills the air, and serves as the starting bell for the five year chase between Rose and Bobby until the day she leaves her world._

* * *

The morning sun begins to shine through the windows of the palace's medical ward where Rose is sleeping soundly, without her jacket, since the fight that ended two days ago. She keeps a small smile on her sleeping face without she barely notices the few bandages on her hands, neck, face, and legs from when she took the explosion and crashed into the building with Pell.

Chopper and Vivi are the only ones in the medical ward to help take care of her and Luffy, who is sleeping soundly in the bed next to Rose's. While Vivi replaces the damp rag on Luffy's head, Chopper takes a look at Rose's condition.

The reindeer smiles in satisfaction when he sees that her vitals are normal. _*It looks like her only problem now is exhaustion. How much wind did she use during the fight?*_

He goes to get his medicine ready when he suddenly hears a groan from the freckled girl. Vivi and Chopper widen their eyes to see that Rose is slowly getting up.

"Take it easy Rose!" Chopper says as he rushes to her.

Rose grins at the reindeer as she sits up on the bed. "Morning guys, how long was I out?"

Vivi blinks at her calm attitude, as if she's not waking up from a battle, then grins back. "You were unconscious since the day before yesterday."

Rose widens her eyes at the news. "I wasted two days?!"

Chopper nods as he goes to his desk to grab a tiny cup full of green powder medicine, a few apples, and a glass of water then heads over to her. "You overdid it with your powers again. Take this and you'll be full of energy."

"Really?!" Rose takes the green powder and gulps it down. She nearly retches from the disgusting flavor before she munches on the apples to get rid of the taste. After she gulps her water, she sets the glass on the small table next to her then grins at the doctor. "Can I go out now?"

Chopper nods in approval, so she jumps out of bed and digs into her bag.

Vivi raises an eyebrow at the girl's eagerness as she watches her shuffle through the bag. "What are you doing?"

"Getting my camera so I can go develop the pictures I took. I promised Usopp a copy of my picture of the Merry. Now where did I-?! Here it is!" She pulls out the camera with a large smile then turns to the princess. "I'm sorry to ask, but do you have a guitar that I can borrow?"

The princess gets taken back by the random request. "You can play?"

Rose nods with a carefree grin. "Yea, I street performed a lot back home. I was thinking of playing again. Do I need a permit to perform in Alabasta?"

Vivi raises an eyebrow at the odd question before she shakes her head. "No, you don't need a permit. There's a spare guitar in the music room next door that you can borrow. Do you know where you can develop the pictures?"

Rose pauses at the sudden realization that she has no idea on where to go before she sheepishly chuckles. "Nope, where can I go?"

"If you leave through the front entrance, you can go to a photo shop a few blocks down the street. The royal astronomer should be awake around sunset so please come back by then."

Rose's smile quickly broadens at the mention of the astronomer before she straps on her bag and starts running out of the room. "I'll be back by sunset then! Thank you Vi-!" She cuts herself off when she accidentally bumps into Nami.

The navigator grabs Rose's shoulders to make sure that they don't fall. "Hey, take it easy. Did you just wake up?"

Rose nods before she shows her the camera. "Yup, I'm heading out to develop the pictures. Do you want any?"

Nami quirks an eyebrow at her eagerness as she takes the camera. "Wait a minute, you didn't finish yet."

The brunette tilts her head at the statement. "What do you mean?"

"You never took pictures of yourself with us, come on!" Before Rose can say anything, Nami takes her by the arm and leads her back into the room. "Chopper, take a picture!"

She tosses the camera to Chopper causing the reindeer to frantically catch it. He sighs in relief that he caught it then scowls at Nami who's dragging Rose to the center of the room. "Wait, I want a picture with Rose and Vivi too!"

"You can take one with them after this. Vivi, come on over here." Nami says as she stops dragging Rose and waves for Vivi to come over.

"O-ok!" Vivi rushes over to them and stands on the opposite side of Rose so that the wind girl's in the middle.

Rose widens her eyes at the sudden moment of taking a picture with a group of friends and glances at Nami and Vivi for a second. She brightly grins at the new experience as she turn to the camera. "Ready when you are doc."

Chopper nods with a smile as he takes the picture. "My turn!"

"Alright, alright." Nami says as she takes the camera from the reindeer.

Chopper quickly runs over to his desk, drags a chair to Nami's old spot on Rose's right, and stands on it.

Rose resists the growing urge to hug the adorable reindeer before she goes to Chopper's right side.

Nami raises an eyebrow at her actions. "What are you doing?"

"Doc's too cute to not be in the center." Rose says as she motions Vivi to come closer.

Vivi follows her silent instructions as she stands next to Chopper so that he's in the middle. "She's right, you really are adorable."

Chopper blushes at the compliments before he starts smiling with a small blush on his face and rubs the back of his head. "Shut up you bastards! Don't think giving me compliments will make me happy you morons!"

Nami chuckles at his attitude before she takes the photo with the girls smiling at the camera. "Alright, you're good."

Chopper gets off the chair and back to work on his medicine while Vivi helps him out. Rose goes up to Nami to take the camera back, but the navigator raises it out of her reach. "Hold on, you have one more picture to take."

She hums in confusion as she looks up at the camera. "What picture?"

She points to the stool that's right by her sleeping captain's bed with a small smirk. "Just take a picture next to Luffy and you're free to go."

She widens her eyes at the stool, but she doesn't see any harm in it so she takes a seat. She looks next to her and leans in a little to see the rubber man snoring away as his limbs are sprawled on the bed. _*When he wakes up, he'll only have two chances to guess my cold wind. Either he gets it right or I'm off the hook. Regardless, I don't think I'll ever forget this adventure.*_

She softly grins at the sleeping captain with admiration in her eyes when she suddenly hears her camera go off. She looks to see Nami chuckling as she lowers the camera. "That was a cute one. You should give Luffy a copy."

Rose loses her smile at the suggestion as she stands up. "No way in- Whoa!"

She yelps in surprise when a rubber arm suddenly wraps around her waist and pulls her to the owner with her back to him. The redness on Rose's face begins to compete with a tomato when she turns around to see Luffy's sleeping face close enough for their noses to almost touch. _*DID NAMI PLAN THIS OR WAS IT A FREAKING ACCIDENT?!*_

She tries to pull out of the embrace, but he keeps a tight hold on her as he's sleeping the day away.

Vivi widens her eyes at the sight before she turns to Chopper. "He didn't do that when I was near him. Did he do that around you?"

Chopper shakes his head as he keeps his eyes on his captain who's clinging onto the squirming girl. "No, he never did."

Nami quickly snaps a picture before she laughs at the sight. "Hahaha, this picture is perfect!"

The blushing girl groans at her laughter as she keeps struggling to escape, but he won't loosen his grip. "Shut up and help me out of this dammit!"

"Alright, alright." Nami goes over to pull her out, but Vivi and Chopper, in heavy point, both had to help in order to free her from Luffy's arms.

Rose sighs in relief, with a tint of pink still showing on her freckled cheeks, as she dusts herself off. "Thanks for getting me out."

Chopper nods as he transforms back into brain point and sees that Luffy's still sleeping. "No problem, but why did he do that when you were around him?"

Nami snickers at the question as she points to Rose with her thumb. "Isn't it obvious? It's because he wants her to stay with him."

Rose quickly takes her camera from Nami and walks out with her bangs covering her eyes. "Sorry, but nothing's changed. I'll catch you guys later."

Nami, Chopper and Vivi widen their eyes at the cold retreat as they watch the brunette walk out of the room.

Nami stares at the door as if Rose is still there for another second before she sadly sighs. _*Maybe I overdid it. Speaking of recruitment…*_

She looks towards the princess, who went back to taking care of her captain. "Hey Vivi, what do you think of joining our crew?"

Vivi freezes at the sudden question before she turns to her in shock. "What?!"

Nami chuckles at the shock as she crosses her arm over her chest. "I'm serious; the others will love to have you."

Chopper eagerly nods with a smile. "Yea, it'll be a lot of fun. What do you say Vivi?"

Vivi nervously stares at the pirates for a second before she sheepishly rubs the back of her head. "Would it be alright if I think about it?"

Nami grins in understanding as she starts walking out of the room. "Of course, we won't be leaving for a while, so take your time. If Luffy wakes up, let me know."

Vivi nods as she and Chopper continue taking care of the unconscious captain for the rest of the day.

* * *

Once Rose grabs an acoustic guitar from the music room, she heads out of the palace to find a place to perform. In order to avoid distracting the people who are rebuilding the city from the battle, she goes to the middle of an untouched marketplace on the outskirts of town to play. _*This looks like a good spot. It feels like years since I did this. Too bad Smoker's not here or this would really be nostalgic.*_

She chuckles at the thought of the real Smoker interrupting her performance before she sets her backpack down and opens it up for tips. She looks at the civilians passing by on the busy street and smiles before she tunes the guitar. As she looks down at the strings, she thinks hard on what kind of song would be appropriate for her Alabasta debut.

When she decides on a song that's perfect to celebrate not only her new life, but the country's new start, she looks out to the audience. However,instead of touching the strings for the start of her performance, she stomps her right foot to the ground in a steady rhythm.

Half of the civilians walking by stop and look at the stomping girl in confusion just before she starts singing the beginning to "Set it All Free" by Scarlett Johansson.

 _I followed my heart into the fire~  
Got burned, got broken down by desire~  
I tried, I tried but the smoke in my eyes~  
Left me blurry, blurry and blind~_

The group widens their eyes at the pretty singing voice when she stops thumping the ground, and starts strumming up the chords.

 _I picked all the pieces up off the ground~  
I've burned all my fingers but that's gone now~  
Got the glue in my hands and stickin' to the plan~  
Stickin' to the plan that says "I can"~_

 _Do anything at all~  
I can do anything at all~_

 _This is my kiss goodbye~  
You can stand alone and watch me fly~  
Cause nothing's keeping me down~  
Gonna let it all up~  
Come on and say right now, right now, right now~  
This is my big hello~  
Cause I'm here and never letting go~  
I can finally see, it's not just a dream~  
When you set it all free, all free, all free~  
You set it all free~_

She swings her body to the rhythm as she smiles from the feeling that nothing from her past can bother her at this moment. Not the words of the people that doubted her, not the pain from her foster family, or anything else in between matters at this point as she blocks out the world with the chords she strums. The growing audience however, continue to crowd the slim girl in awe as they listen to a song that they never heard before.

 _I was a girl caught under your thumb~  
But my star's gonna shine brighter than your sun~  
And I will reach so high, shoot so far~  
Gonna hit, gonna hit, hit every target~_

 _It counts this time~  
I will make it count this time~_

As she plays the second chorus two scrawny marine grunts, who are searching for the Straw Hats right down the street, stop when they hear the song and look to see a crowd building up.

The tan, dark eyed marine officer raises an eyebrow at the show. "Hey Sam, ever heard that song before?"

The pale, taller officer next to him strains his blue eyes to get a look at the guitarist, but he can't see her over the audience. "Can't say I have Carlo. Let's get a closer look, the Straw Hats could be there."

His partner nods as they start heading to the performance.

Rose however, doesn't notice the attention she's getting as she plays to her heart's content. She continues strumming when pictures of Vivi and the Straw Hats suddenly appear in her mind. Her smile starts to shrink as she keeps playing while she's reminded that while she's starting her new life now, the fun that she had with Vivi and the crew is over. She lifts her head to the sky as if she can forget that fact just by staring at it, and sings the final chorus.

 _This is my kiss goodbye~  
You can stand alone and watch me fly~  
Cause nothing's keeping me down~  
I'm gonna let it all up~  
Come on and say right now, right now, right now~  
This is my big hello~  
Cause I'm here and never letting go~  
I can finally see, it's not just a dream~  
When you set it all free, all free, all free~  
You set it all free~  
You set it all free~  
You set it all free~  
You set it all free~  
You set it all free~_

The large audience, of at least twenty people, get taken aback by the final chorus when they feel a new emotion in her voice. She not only had the feeling of freedom in that piece, but something else they can't describe that gave it a new edge. Once they realize that the brunette's finished with the song, they waste no time in applauding her.

She snaps back to reality to the applause and widens her eyes at how she managed to attract such a large crowd. She quickly remembers her showman manners and bows to the audience then lifts her torso with a smile. "Thanks guys, if you like what you heard then please drop a tip in the bag."

She uses her wind to lift up the bag in front of her with the audience staring at it in shock, but once they calm down they quickly drop their tips in the bag. Rose brightly smiles at the amount of tips she's receiving as she moves the bag around, so that more people can reach it. She allows her wind to keep moving the bag around as she gets ready for another song. "Alright, now that I'm warmed up I'll give you something to really enjoy! This one's called-!"

"You're under arrest!"

Rose pauses at the interruption when she sees two marines walking towards her and pushing through the crowd towards her. _*Again?! Are you shitting me right now?!*_

She couldn't help but laugh at the interruption as she uses her wind to pull her bag back to her side while the citizens scatter. She closes the bag and straps it onto her back before she smirks at the marines. "Sorry boys, but I never heard of a song called 'you're under arrest'."

Sam scowls at her attitude as he approaches her. "Shut up, you're under arrest for piracy!"

Rose loses her smile at the accusation as she looks at him in confusion. "And what proof do you have that I'm a pirate?"

"We saw you running out of Rain Base with the Straw Hats!" Carlo says as he gets his handcuffs out.

Rose takes a step back towards the building behind her while she grips the guitar. "Now hold on, I'm not a pirate! I travelled with them, but I never joined the crew!"

Sam scoffs at the excuse. "What makes you think we'd believe you? We heard all about your hostage act from Captain Smoker!"

Rose twitches an eyebrow at the reminder. "I never said I was a hostage! He just assumed it!" She groans at the situation as she gently sets the guitar down and gets in a stance. "You know what; I don't give a shit if you don't believe me! I did nothing wrong! If you guys want to fight a civilian then come on!"

Sam gets ready to tackle her when his partner raises an arm to stop him. "Hold on, I know a way to prove your innocence."

Rose and Sam both look at him in confusion while Carlo smirks at the girl. "Since you traveled with the crew, you should know where they're hiding right? If you lead us to them then we have no reason to think that you're one of them."

The wind girl blinks at the deal before she gets her fists ready. "So you want me to sell them out?"

"Call it what you will, but you'll be free, so how about-" The marine quickly shuts up when she punches him in the nose so hard that it knocks him out.

Sam widens his eyes at his broken nosed partner before he pulls out his gun. "I knew it, you are a pirate!"

Rose narrows her eyes at the officer as she picks up the guitar. "I'm not, but if I had to choose being friends with pirates, or marine bastards then I'd choose the pirates in a heartbeat."

The marine growls at the insult and gets ready to shoot, but stops when he sees her flying. "WHAT THE HELL?!"

Rose chuckles at his shock as she lands on top of a nearby building. "That being said, I'd rather not get too much attention as a criminal, so I'm gonna leave. Bye, bye!"

She playfully sticks her tongue out before she starts using her wind to jump from roof to roof while the marine runs behind her. "GET BACK HERE!"

"MAYBE WHEN YOU PICK A BETTER LINE THAN 'GET BACK HERE'!" Rose yells back as she toys with him by continuing to roof jump with the alleyways the only way for him to go after her.

The marine aims his gun at her and shoots a warning shot that flies next to Rose, so she looks down in shock. She decides not to drag this out anymore and gets ready to send him flying. However, before she can do anything, she stops running and looks down in shock to see that three arms grew on both the left and right side of the marine's body.

Sam screams in terror when the six arms put him in a clutch, and crack his bones to knock him out before they transform into pink flowers petals.

Rose sweat drops at the passed out marine and can't help but feel a little sorry for the guy. _*Maybe I should've sent him flying from the start... Wait, where did Robin pull that move from?*_

She looks around the streets from her spot on the roof for the arcaeologist, but she can't find her. Regardless of not being able to find her, Rose grins at the open air and calls out to her. "THANKS FOR THE HELP!"

Through the top floor window of an inn, that's across the street from the chase, Nico Robin grins at the gratitude as she watches the wind girl fly off, then grabs her bag to leave the inn and flee the city.

* * *

When the sun begins to set, Rose manages to return to the palace through the back entrance to avoid the risk of being seen by the marines. Once she's inside she grins at the fun day she had as she looks at the two, long, fat, envelopes that hold all the pictures she took on her Alabasta journey. She puts them in her bag and wanders the halls in search for the princess. She didn't have to look long though, because Vivi walked out of a room just before Rose was going to search in it.

Once the princess notices Rose, she smiles at her. "There you are, I was about to look for you. I just heard that the astronomer's awake."

Rose widens her eyes at the news before she returns the smile with stars in her eyes. "Then what are we waiting for?! Let's go!"

Vivi nods as she leads her through the corridors until they reach the end of the western hall where a spiral staircase is waiting for them.

As Rose follows Vivi up the stairs she can't help but look around in excitement. "So Vivi, what's this astronomer like?"

Vivi sighs as she looks back at her. "Sadly, I can't say a lot about him myself. He normally sleeps during the day and works all night, so I don't see him a lot. During the times I did see him he was very kind. I'm sure the two of you will get along well."

"I hope so." Rose says with a small smile as she continues to follow the princess.

Once Vivi looks forward, Rose looks up at the door that's coming up ahead in a mixture of anxiety and excitement. _*This is it; this is my chance to find out how the Timore comet's viewed. If I can't find anything in the books, then I'll ask about it. Whatever happens, there's no turning back.*_

She takes a silent deep breath to calm herself as she clutches her necklace for moral support. She takes a look at the gem around her neck with a small smile, before she hides the necklace under her t-shirt as a safety measure. Once she pays attention to where they're going, she sees a dark red door at the top of the stairs. When Vivi opens the entrance, Rose widens her purple eyes in awe of the large circular room inside.

As she looks around the room, she can't take her eyes off the book shelves, that go from the floor all the way to the ceiling, that are filled to the brim with books and cover almost all the walls of the room. The only parts of the wall that's not blocked is the large window, and a space where two desks are placed. In the center of the room holds two couches that sit in front of the biggest telescope that Rose has ever seen, that has four separate eye piece attached to it, and stretches up to the edge of window to get a clear view of the night sky.

At the moment, two men are swarmed around the telescope. The one actually using the tool is a man in his late forties with his straight, light blonde, hair tied back in a short ponytail, and wearing a dark green Alabastian robe. Working beside him is a boy in his early twenties, wearing a similar robe in grey, and taking notes for his teacher.

The older man doesn't notice the intruders as he looks through the telescope, and places a tan hand on the astronomy tool to lift the angle. "It looks we'll be seeing the birth of a star tonight. Pop quiz Amir, how are stars created?"

The pale boy known as Amir stops scribbling as he runs a hand through his shaggy, light red hair and thinks hard on the answer. "W-well, they're created when light elements scatter. Right Cassim?"

Cassim sighs at the wrong answer as he keeps his purple eyes on the telescope. "No, try again."

Amir, knits his eyebrows in deep thought, but another voice chimes in the answer.

"It's when atoms of light elements are squeezed together in regions of molecular clouds, and go through a fusion that binds them together."

Both boys widen their eyes at Rose's correct answer and turn around to see the princess and another girl standing by the doorway.

Rose nervously shifts under their stares as she sets the guitar against a bookshelf, and rubs the back of her head. "I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to steal his quiz. I thought it was open to everyone."

Cassim quickly shakes his head as he runs up to the girls. "No, no, no! It's quite alright! At least you answered correctly!"

Amir twitches an eyebrow at the passive insult as he watches his teacher go up to the princess. "It's been a while your highness, I'm happy to see you safe again."

Vivi grins back at the astronomer. "I'm glad to see you too Cassim." She looks over his shoulder to see the younger boy staring at the group. "Did you take an apprentice when I was away?"

Cassim nods with a small smile as he extends his arm to the boy. "That's right, this is Amir. I took him on as my apprentice last year."

Amir grins at the princess and bows to her. "It's an honor to meet you in person princess."

"It's nice to meet you as well." Vivi says before she pulls Rose's arm and turns to the astronomer. "I also have someone to introduce you to. This is my friend Rose; she helped me stop the rebellion and wants to become an astronomer."

Cassim widens his eyes at the introduction before he brightly smiles at the freckled girl. "Is this true?!"

Rose sheepishly nods with a small smile. "Yes sir."

The teacher chuckles at her shy answer before he pats her on the back. "No need to be so formal. Anyone who wishes to learn about the universe is a friend. Is there a specific part of the universe that you wish to study?"

Rose begins to relax under his kind attitude as she smiles up at the taller man. "I'm mainly looking to do my research on comets, but I'm also interested in studying the stars."

"Well, come on then! Let's look at the baby star together!" He grabs Rose's wrist and pulls her into the room to join his study session.

Rose accidentally blows a soft warm breeze from the excitement before it fades. She pulls her wrist free when they reach the telescope and waves for Vivi to join them. "Come see it too Vivi! Seeing a star born is really rare!"

Vivi shakes her head as she picks up the guitar. "Maybe another time. I should get back to the others."

"Ok." Rose says as she looks into one of the telescope's eyepieces along with Amir and Cassim.

The princess softly grins at how things turned out for her friend before she leaves to join the others for the night.

* * *

After Rose and the astronomers witnessed the birth of the newborn star, Cassim wasted no time in showing the wind girl his collection of research material on comets.

As Amir does his own research on the telescope, Rose looks up at the large bookshelf with in pure awe. "This entire shelf holds only books about comets?!"

The astronomer nods as he goes to get a rolling ladder. "That's correct, feel free to look through them. What is it about comets that interest you?"

She doesn't notice him getting a ladder as she stares at the vast amounts of literature in front of her. "Everything really, it's amazing how they not only can last for millions of years, but the radiation they pick up can give them other properties."

Amir pauses at the explanation as he turns to the girl in confusion. "Other properties?"

The brunette nods at the question as she turns to him. "Yea, generally speaking, comets normally absorb the sun's radiation, but what if that's not the case for all of them? What if there are comets that absorbed radiation from another source which gave them special properties? Properties that give them astral energy to do things that normal comets can't."

Cassim becomes astonished at her curiosity before he brightly smiled and grabbed the rolling ladder that's attached to the shelves at the top. "There are definitely comets that have that quality! You can find examples of them in the blue book on the top shelf, but let me give you a pop quiz first. What causes a regular comet to go extinct?"

Rose chuckles at the question as she spots the book at the top shelf. "That's an easy one. That happens when a comet takes in the sun's radiation too many times, and loses its volatile ice."

Cassim nods at the answer as he starts rolling the ladder towards her. "Very good, the ladder's your reward."

Rose grabs the ladder and begins to climb for her book. Once she reaches the top she reaches for the text, that's an arm's length away, but she accidentally leans too far out and starts to fall.

The boys widen their eyes at the slip as they rush to try to catch her, but she catches herself by pushing wind out of her hand to regain her balance. Both boys face plant at the recovery while Rose acts like it's no big thing. "WHAT THE-?!"

Rose chuckles at their shock as she grabs the book and returns to the floor. "Sorry, I didn't want to shock you when we just met. See, I ate the wind wind fruit, so my body's basically air now."

Amir steps backwards from the girl until he's behind the telescope and narrows his eyes at her.

Cassim however, grows intrigued by the power as he looks at her with excited curiosity. "That's amazing! Do you know what that means?! You can use this to stop clouds from ruining your studies!"

Rose chuckles at his excitement, while not noticing the apprentice's discontent, before she scratches the back of her head. "I actually tried it once, but I was only able to make a small hole."

"Really?! Tell me-"

The astronomer's excitement was interrupted when his apprenice clears his throat and points to the telescope. "Cassim, can you please come over here? I think I saw something."

Cassim complies as he goes to the telescope while Rose stays where she's standing to dive her face into the book.

Once the teacher reaches his student, the boy wraps an arm around the man's shoulders and pulls his head down towards the telescope to whisper to him. "Cassim, I know you're having fun, but we shouldn't put too much trust in that girl."

Cassim sighs at his suspicion before he whispers back. "I know you don't like devil fruit users, but that doesn't mean you should be suspicious about all of them."

"Please just listen, don't you find her mindset about comets a little odd? It's almost like she's searching for more than what she's saying. She could be plotting something for all we know."

Cassim narrows his eyes at his apprentice's biased attitude. "That's enough, if she was plotting something do you think she'd risk her life to help the princess save our country? If you keep being rude then you'll be dismissed for the night. Am I clear?"

Amir clenches his fists at the warning before he turns to leave. "Don't bother with the threat, I'll take my leave for tonight. Don't say I didn't warn you about her though."

Rose lifts her head from the book when she hears the sound of the door slamming shut and looks to see that Amir left. She blinks in confusion before she turns to the astronomer. "Is everything alright?"

Cassim sighs in frustration before he turns to his guest. "Please forgive my apprentice. When he was a child, a pirate with a powerful devil fruit killed his family. Ever since then, he's had a hard time trusting devil fruit users. It took him a while to just get used to Chaka and Pell."

Rose widens her eyes at the explanation before she starts heading to the door. "I'm sorry, I didn't know. I'll call him back here and leave."

Cassim blocks her off and places a hand on her shoulder to stop her. "Don't worry about him. When he gets like this, there's no talking to him. He'll be back when he's calmed down."

Rose stares over his shoulder to look at the door for another second before she quietly sighs. "Well, if you say so."

Cassim gives her a smile to lift the mood. "Trust me, this isn't the first time this has happened. So how's the book? Were you able to find anything?"

Rose shakes her head as she opens the book and skims the pages to find her place. "Not yet, but there's some pretty cool stuff in here."

The astronomer grins at her enthusiasm as he goes to one of the bookshelves to pick out a book for himself. "That's good to hear. You seem to already have a good amount of knowledge on astronomy though. Where did you learn?"

Rose softly smiles at the question as she thinks back on her parents and heads to a couch. "My parents are astronomy professors and they tutored me on this as soon as I learned to read."

"Oh? And where are they now? Would I have heard of them?"

Rose pauses at the question as she loses her smile and keeps her eyes on the pages. "No, I doubt that you've heard of them. They're nowhere on the Grand Line..."

Cassim blinks at the soft tone in her voice she used to answer, and sees that this is a sensitive subject. He quietly sighs as he looks over the books. "Sorry, I didn't mean to open any old wounds."

She shakes her head and gives him a small grin. "It's alright. It's too bad they're not here though, because if they were I'm sure you all would be talking about stars all night."

Cassim chuckles at the assumption as he grabs a constellation book from the shelf and goes to the second couch. "I see, at least I can speak to their daughter. How long will you be staying in Alabasta? You're one of those pirates, so you'll be leaving soon right?"

Rose relaxes in her seat before she finally finds her place in the book. "I'm actually not a pirate. I'm not exactly sure when I'm leaving the palace yet. My plan is to exchange notes with you, and then leave to set up shop as an astronomer in a neighboring town."

"What are you, nuts?!" Rose lifts her head from the book and pauses when she sees Cassim frowning at her decision. "If you're not a pirate then don't leave! You can stay here as my apprentice!"

Rose widens her eyes at the invitation as she drops her book onto her lap. "You're serious?!"

Cassim nods as his lips form into a smile. "Of course, there's no rule in me having more than one student. I can make it so we meet at different times than I do with Amir until he relaxes."

He stops himself when he sees that he's getting carried away then chuckles and rubs the back of his head. "Sorry for the outburst, I just see this as a great opportunity. While I can't force you to stay, I hope you will consider my offer."

She stares at the eager scientist in bewilderment as a gentle warm breeze flows out of her body for a second. When the wind stops, she looks at the bookshelves while she thinks it over. _*This is a perfect opportunity for me. I did put some thought to this path before, but if the comet's a taboo…*_

She lowers her head, so that her bangs cover her eyes, before she grabs her book and stands up. "Do you mind if I think this over?"

Cassim nods as he gestures to the bookshelf. "Not at all, it's a lot to take in after all. Feel free to borrow that book, and come by during the day tomorrow to study. Also, please don't take Amir's attitude to heart when you come to a decision. To be honest, having a devil fruit user that wants to study astronomy around could be what he needs to heal."

Rose grins at the concern he has for his student before she grabs her bag and starts walking to the door. "You don't need to worry about that. If I always took misjudgments from strangers to heart, then I'd have given up on astronomy a long time ago. I'll give you my decision soon."

"I look forward to it." Cassim says as Rose closes the door behind her and heads back to the medical ward that she woke up in.

As soon as Rose reaches the infirmary, where the rest of the crew's sleeping, she quietly goes inside. She keeps a sharp eye on Luffy, who's sleeping in the bed next to her, as she hastily makes it to her bed to avoid a repeat of this morning. _*Even when this guy's unconscious, he's unpredictable. I don't think even reaching the end of the One Piece series can get me to understand him.*_

She sighs as she thinks back on the crazy things he's put her through these past few weeks as sits cross legged with her back to the window behind her, so the moonlight can be used as a reading lamp. While she did have some crazy times, she can't help but think back on all the fun times she's had with everyone as well. She keeps a small smile on her face as a gentle warm breeze blows off her, and towards the captain.

Luffy keeps a small smile on his face from the warmth, while Rose looks over her shoulder to stare out the window, and at the country that will be her new home. _*Luffy and the crew really did give me a great adventure. I don't think I can thank them enough. If things were any different with my situation then who knows? Maybe I would've taken Luffy's offer to join from the start. But, this is for the best, whether or not I decide to stay as an apprentice I'm staying behind if Luffy loses...*_

Her mood breeze begins to alternate from warm to cold wind repeatedly, and makes Luffy shiver then relax in an endless cycle as the winds keep changing. When Rose sees what's happening to Luffy, she quickly cancels out her mood breeze then tiredly sighs. _*Damn mood breezes, they're nothing but trouble... Well, I doubt Luffy figured it out from this so it's fine for now. I'd better get back to my book.*_

She relaxes on the bed, and reads the book from cover to cover before falling asleep for the night in hopes that everything will run smoothly for her.

* * *

The following morning, Rose wastes no time in going to the astronomy tower after breakfast to study. When she reaches the room, she's met with Amir looking back at her from his desk.

Amir scowls at the intruder as he doesn't hesitate to question her. "What are you doing here? Cassim's asleep right now."

Rose ignores his look of discontent as she shows him the book she borrowed. "I finished the book. Do you know any others that are similar to this?"

The apprentice shakes his head as he gets back to his own work. "I don't have time to guide you like Cassim did. If you want to keep searching then you have to look for yourself like I did."

Rose shrugs at the answer as she heads over to the bookshelf she received her book from. "Fair enough."

She gets ready to fly again but stops herself, to be mindful of the devil fruit hater, and goes to the rolling ladder.

Amir stops writing when he hears the rolling ladder moving and looks to see Rose pushing the long ladder to the bookshelf. He raises an eyebrow at the task she's handling even though she can save time by flying. "What, no wind today?"

"I can use the exercise." Rose says as she reaches the bookshelf. She places the finished book in her backpack and starts climbing to the top one step at a time.

Amir rolls his dark green eyes at her antics and gets back to his work. _*Who does she think she's kidding? Just because she's not using it for everything doesn't mean that she's not dangerous.*_

He continues writing his notes when he hears shuffling and suddenly hears something sliding. He turns to see that the book was returned and three more books fill her backpack as she slides down the ladder. Just before she reaches the bottom, she tightens her grip on the ladder and slightly burns the palm of her hands as she regains her footing on the last steps.

The student twitches an eyebrow at her childish behavior as he stands up. "THAT'S NOT A TOY!"

Rose chuckles at the complaint as she climbs off and shakes the mild burn from her hands off. "Sorry, but that definitely saved some time. Didn't you ever want to try that when you first came here?"

"That's not the point, you-!" He tightens the hold on his pen in irritation and forces himself to get back to his work. "You got some new books from the shelf right? So quit making a racket."

Rose does what she's told as she takes off her backpack to put it on the couch, and then sits cross legged next to it to begin reading the three new books.

Amir sighs in content as he continues writing and looks through his book on the sun and the moon. As the hours pass, he takes on as much information as he can from the book until he needs to look through another to continue his work. He grabs his book and puts it back on its bookshelf then gets on the ladder to find another one for his research.

As he reaches the top of the shelf, he looks back to see what the quiet girl's doing. He looks closely to see her gripping the third book she's reading tightly as she searches through the pages with burning determination in her eyes. He blinks at how focused she is on her studies, just how he is, before he snaps out of it and pulls his eyes away from the studious teen to get back to his task. _*I don't care what Cassim says, I know she's hiding something…*_

He shakes his head to get rid of the thought as he skims the book covers until he spots a silver covered book that's just out of his reach. He grabs the shelf with one arm to pull himself closer to the literature as he reaches for it with his other hand. Once he grabs the book he smiles, but he accidentally loses his footing on the ladder and falls.

Rose stops reading when she hears the ladder rolling fast and a book hitting the floor. She turns to the source and widens her eyes to see Amir dangling from shelf with the ladder too far from his reach. "Oh shit!"

She jumps off the couch and runs to the ladder to start pushing it towards him. "Grab on!"

She brings the ladder close enough for him to reach, but before he can grab it he loses his grip from the shelf and starts falling. Amir closes his eyes as he gets ready to hit the floor, but he never does. When he opens his eyes he widens them in shock to see that his body is gently floating to the floor by a gust of wind until his feet touch the ground.

Rose releases her wind and sighs in relief that she caught him in time. "Are you alright?"

Amir gets taken back by her kindness, but the memories of his past come back to haunt him. The scar of how the devil fruit using pirate was kind to him at first, but in the end betrayed him keeps him from giving the girl a proper chance. He scowls at the devil fruit user and turns around to pick up his dropped book. "I'm fine…"

Rose cringes at the cold tone in his voice as she watches him walk back to his desk. She quietly sighs in dissatisfaction of not getting closer to becoming friends with him, but she doesn't let it keep her down as she gets back to her studies.

Once she returns to her place in the light red book, she searches for anything on the comet with a small smile. _*Even though I didn't find anything about it yet, I learned a great deal from these books. I'd better get another journal to make world comparison notes later.*_

She chuckles at the idea as she keeps her nose in the book until Usopp slams the door open. The sniper looks around the room while he catches his breath until he spots the wind girl. "There you are Rose, please come down! Sanji refuses to let us eat lunch without you!"

Rose widens her eyes at the plea before she chuckles and stands up. "Yea, alright." She turns to the Amir, who's focusing on his studies, and waves at him. "Do you want to join us?"

"No." Amir says as he doesn't spare her a glance.

Usopp raises an eyebrow at the cold treatment, but Rose doesn't give it a lot of thought as she joins the sniper and leaves the apprentice alone.

Once Amir's finally alone he drops the pen, and buries his head in his hands. _*Dammit, why does this have to happen to me again?! Knowing Cassim, he didn't waste time asking her to be his apprentice too. I need some way to prove that-?!*_

He snaps out of his thoughts when he sees that she left her backpack behind. He wastes no time in going over to the bag to start snooping around her belongings. He starts by pulling out her envelopes, along with the camera, and then pulls out her bundled up sheet, but he sees nothing out of the ordinary. He looks through the bag to see that besides a few pens and a disheveled pile of money that she earned from street performing there's nothing else in there. He opens the envelope that's labeled 'Mine', but with one glance he can see that it's just a pile of pictures.

He sighs in frustration as he rubs his head and starts to feel that his suspicions are all for nothing. _*Is she really just an astronomer? Ugh, this is getting me nowhere. I'd better put this back before I get in trouble.*_

He starts putting her stuff back a piece at a time, but when he pulls the sheet and picks it up he accidentally unfolds it. What he didn't intend to happen though, was a golden colored journal to fall out of the unraveled sheet.

Amir silently gasps at the book as he picks it up. As he skims the pages, his eyes begin to slowly widen when he quickly pieces what she's researching together. "I KNEW IT!"

He keeps the journal in his hands as he runs out of the room to wake his teacher and show him his new discovery about their guest.

* * *

With Luffy still unconscious, the meal between Vivi, Rose and the pirates seemed relatively quieter. It didn't take long for them to finish and start heading out.

As Rose begins to leave, Usopp blocks her off. "Wait Rose, did you make that picture of the Going Merry?"

The brunette freezes at the question before she brightly smiles at him. "Yea, I made them yesterday. It's in my bag at the astronomy tower. I actually made an extra copy of all my photos if you guys want them."

Sanji, who's about to leave the room, pauses at the offer before hearts form in his eyes. "Aww, you're so sweet!"

Nami, who just finished her meal, freezes at the comment then smirks. "Was the special one I made yesterday copied too?"

Rose chuckles at the question. "That's the only one I didn't make a copy of. I'm not sure how long I'm going to be at the tower, so if you guys come with me I can give them to you."

"Sure." Nami says as she and the two boys follow her towards the tower.

As Rose leads them through the stairwell, she turns to the group. "So Nami, did you ask Vivi to join the crew?"

Usopp and Sanji widen their eyes at the question before they look to the navigator. "You did?!"

Nami chuckles at their surprise. "Yup, it'd be great if she and Carue joined us."

"You're serious?!" Usopp asks while Sanji grins in excitement with hearts in his eyes.

"Mellorine, it'd be great to have another lovely lady onboard as well as-!" He stops and looks to see Rose grinning at them. "Did Luffy still not guess what your cold wind is?"

Rose nods as she looks ahead. "Yup, any idea when he'll be waking up?"

Usopp shrugs at the question. "No idea, but it can't be too long now. He always recovers quickly."

The wind girl couldn't help but smile at how true that statement is when she reaches the door. "In that case, I'd better stay on my toes."

She opens the door, and her lips imediately turn downwards when she sees Amir standing with Cassim holding her open journal in his hands. "Oh no..."

The pirates look at her in confusion when the astronomers see that some guests have arrived.

Amir smirks at the devil fruit user, but stays quiet while Cassim steps up.

He lifts up the journal, so that it can be clearly seen, as he scowls at Rose. "I want you to be honest with me. Did you write this?"

She returns the scowl as she slowly nods. "I did, I was going to ask you about it if I decided to stay, but maybe it's easier to talk about it like this."

Nami knits her eyebrows in confusion as she tries to understand the situation. "Rose, what are you talking about? What's going on?"

Amir snickers at their lack of understnding. "You mean the little witch never told you?"

"What'd you call her?!" Sanji asks as he goes to kick his ass, but Usopp grabs his arms to hold him back.

"Don't do anything crazy Sanji!" Usopp says as he struggles to hold him back while Rose goes in front of them.

"Please calm down Sanji! I'll explain everything if you do!" Rose says with pleading eyes.

The chef immediately calms down and nods as he settles down enough for Usopp to let him go.

Rose quietly sighs then gives them an explanation. "The main subject in astronomy that I'm studying is a single comet. This comet has the ability to travel to other worlds. If its energy can be harnessed properly, it can also give people the power to travel to other worlds."

The crew members look at the girl in pure disbelief while Cassim furrows his eyebrows in anger. "Don't you know that it's illegal to study the Timore comet?! Do you even understand what kind of demons could come here with that power?!"

Rose, Sanji and Nami look at the man in confusion while Usopp begins to tremble in fear. "D-demons?!"

Amir chuckles at his fright as he steps up. "That's right, demons, who look just like us, can come here through that comet's power which is why it's also referred to as Hell's comet. What's more, rumor has it is that these demons have the knowledge of not only our pasts, but also our futures. They can manipulate whatever event they want and use their other worldly powers to-"

"NOW WAIT JUST A DAMN MINUTE!" Rose yells out as she furiously glares at him. "The comet's not some demon summoner! It is possible for people from other worlds to learn about this one, but-"

"Then what makes them different from monsters?! Do you honestly think that the World Government would accept people like them?!"

Rose frowns at the questions as she tightens her fists to hold back her temper. "Looks like they won't, but this paranoia doesn't make sense! It is possible for other worlds to have our knowledge, but they can't obtain all of it. Like, say you read a novel. While it's fiction in this world it's real events in another. The people reading about that world will only have that information and nothing from outside the book. If someone came here from a world where this one is a story then they could stay out of the way of the main story line and live peacefully."

"But they might not! They could use this knowledge to destroy everything around them!" Amir turns to the pirates who are staring at the debate silently. "If someone you never met before turns out to know all about your crew's past and future, would you be ok with them existing here?!"

The pirates tense up at the question, while Rose can't control her rage anymore and grabs Amir by the collar. "Leave them out of this dammit!"

Rose pulls a fist back to punch him, but Cassim pulls her off him and gives her journal back. "That's enough, we can argue about what's right all we want, but it won't change anything! Rose, I'm sorry, but-"

"Don't bother saying it, I know I can't stay now!" Rose says as keeps a tight grip on the book and uses her wind to lift her backpack from the couch. The backpack hits the back of Amir's head and knocks him down on his face before it reaches her. She looks away from the astronomer and turns to leave. "For what it's worth, I appreciate you letting me look at those books."

She goes to leave, but Cassim stops her and shows her the four books that she read, that are on his desk. "Keep them as an apology for how things turned out. Since you helped save our country, I promise not to report you to the World Government as well." He turns his head to his apprentice, who's standing up from the hit, with narrow eyes. "The same goes for my apprentice."

Amir cringes at the glare before he settles on his victory. "Fine…"

"Thank you." Rose says as she grabs the books with a small gust of cold wind coming out of her, then leaves the tower without looking back.

Nami and the boys quickly run after her and manage to catch up just when she reaches the last step.

"Wait up Rose!" Nami says as she grabs her shoulder to stop her.

The wind girl pulls herself free and turns to them with a small frown. "Sorry you guys had to see that."

Sanji growls at how things turned out for his friend as he starts storming up the stairs. "I'm gonna go kick their-!"

He stops himself when he finds himself being lifted by a gust of wind and brought back down to the group. She gives him a small smile to reassure him that it's not worth it. "It's fine Sanji, I kind of expected this to happen."

Nami widens her eyes at the excuse before she turns her around to angrily face her. "You knew this could happen and you hung around them anyway?!"

Rose quietly sighs as she steps back from the navigator, and rubs the back of her head. "I had to try to learn more from someone. Honestly though, I didn't expect them to talk about demons."

Usopp looks at her nervously as he trembles at the thought of devils existing. "Do these demons really exist?!"

"They're not demons, they're regular people!" Rose angrily says which makes him cringe.

The wind girl takes a deep breath to calm down before she explains herself. "The best way I can describe these people is as if they're from another country. They're different, but also the same as you and I. As I said before, they're able to learn about this world, but not everything. You see, stories that we read are windows to other worlds. If, hypothetically speaking, this world is a story in another universe. Then the natives there can learn about this world through the eyes of the people in the story. Just like how we learn about other worlds through the heroes in our tales."

Sanji grabs a cigarette from his pocket along with a lighter and sets it off to try to calm his nerves. "Along with their pasts too?"

Rose tenses up at the question before she slowly nods. "Yea, depending on what they read, they could know everything about a person's past and future."

She looks to see that all three of them have grown uneasy at her answer, which only works to make her own anxiety grow. She looks at them as calmly as possible before she decides to take a gamble. "Out of curiosity, how would you react if you did meet someone from another world?"

The pirates look at each other while they silently try to decide their view on this.

Nami quietly sighs as she looks away from her and thinks about her past in the Arlong Pirates. "To be honest, I'm not sure..."

Sanji puffs out some smoke from his cigarette, and thinks back on his life in North Blue that he'd rather stay hidden. "It's hard to say since we never met one. If they don't know anything about us then it's just like meeting another person. I probably wouldn't like it if they know my past and future though…"

Usopp wonders why she asked them before he starts looking at her nervously. "Wait, you're not planning to bring people like that to this world are you?!"

Rose lowers her eyes as she feels her heart break from their reactions, but just like in New York, she hides her pain behind a smile. This time though, she keeps her eyes closed to hide her emotions while she waves dismissively. "Relax, I'm not bringing anyone to this world. I plan to use it for my own journey when I figure out how to use its power..."

The three pirates widen their eyes at the forced smile when they feel a strong gust of cold wind in the air. Rose fails to notice her mood breeze as she turns around with her eyes still shut and walks away while she waves. "I'm gonna go clear my head for a bit. I'll see you later."

Sanji immediately becomes filled with guilt as he goes after her. "Rose-chan wait, we didn't mean to-!"

"GUYS, WHERE ARE YOU?!" All four of them stop when they hear the captain's voice from a distant corridor.

While the pirates are distracted, Rose starts running as fast as her legs can carry her with her head down to hide her tearing eyes. _*He had to wake up at the worst possible time! I can't let him see me like this!*_

She goes into a room to fly out of the window and onto the roof to hide.

Meanwhile, Luffy catches up to the group from a separate hallway with a stretched arm full of fruit for him to munch on.

Nami widens her eyes to see her captain eating while he runs up to them. "When did you wake up?!"

Luffy wastes no time in finishing his food before he smiles. "A few minutes ago, I came looking for you guys so we can have dinner. Vivi said we can't eat without you." He looks around to see that they're the only ones around. "Have you guys seen Rose?"

Sanji frowns at the reminder of what just happened as he looks at the direction she fled to. "She went that way."

Luffy turns to go after her, but Nami holds him back. "Wait Luffy, we should give her some space right now."

Luffy blinks at the request as he turns to them. "Why?"

The trio hesitates for a moment before they tell him about Rose's expulsion from the astronomy tower. As they tell him of the apprentice's disrespect for her research, and his crewmates' reaction to it, his hat shadows over his eyes to hide his anger.

Once they finish, Luffy looks at the path that Rose took with a scowl. "Did she make any wind when this was happening?"

Usopp raises an eyebrow at the question before he remembers Rose's mood breeze. "Yea, she made cold wind!"

Luffy doesn't give him another response as he runs off to find her. The three pirates freeze at their captain's actions before they join in his search for the wind girl with clear intentions to apologize.

* * *

As the sun begins to set, Rose sadly sighs from her seat on the rooftop as she hugs her knees with one arm while her other hand clutches onto her family's necklace. She keeps her eyes on the red sky as she allows her mind to wander. _*Cassim was going to find out eventually, it's better that he knew before I chose to work under him… But why did this have to happen with the Straw Hats there?!*_

She tightens her hold on her knees as she remembers the look on Nami, Usopp, and Sanji's troubled faces from when they learned that people could come here from other worlds. She couldn't stop the tears from pooling in her eyes as doubtful thoughts begin to swarm her mind. _*If the crew knew who I was and what I know would we still friends? Or would they have left me on Little Garden?*_

She shakes her head to get rid of the thought as she wipes her tears with the back of her hand. _*Stop it, I shouldn't doubt them! All that information was thrown at them all at once, who wouldn't get scared?! I mean even a member of the monster trio got rattled and he shouldn't be nervous right?! I know about Sanji's past with Zeff, but he shouldn't worry about that. Unless he's worried about some other part of his past, like the time before he met Zeff in North-!*_

She stops her train of thought when she realizes that her mindset is exactly what got them so anxious about people from other worlds in the first place. "I screwed up…"

She groans at her situation as she lays down to look at the new night sky while she keeps a tight hold on her necklace. _*I should just stay here for now. Once I've calmed down, I'll go grab my shit and go-!*_

"ROSE, THERE YOU ARE!" She sits up in shock and looks to see Luffy running towards her on the roof.

Rose tenses up at the approaching captain, before she lets go of the necklace, and puts on a convincing smile. _*Crap, If I fly off he'll just chase me… Just don't think about it and my mood breezes shouldn't act up…*_

She takes a deep breath through her nose to calm herself down, and makes sure that her wind's not going off, when Luffy reaches her. She chuckles at his rush to get here, as she gets up, while Luffy's eyes stay hidden under his hat. "Well aren't you a sight for sore eyes. If I didn't know better, I'd think you didn't just wake up from a three day nap. Let me guess, Sanji won't let you eat unless we're all there?"

Luffy's scowl deepens, at how she's avoiding the subject, as Rose looks around for the nearest window and sees the one she flew out from. "Well let's get inside then. You'd better be prepared, because my food thief deflecting skills are as good as ever."

She starts lifting herself up with her wind then freezes when Luffy grabs her wrist. She raises an eyebrow at his action, but she doesn't let it affect her smile. "Relax Luffy, I'll get you flying right-!"

"SHUT UP AND QUIT IT!"

Rose widens her eyes at his shouting to see that he's looking up at her, not with the childish demeanor she's used to, but with the face of a serious captain. She loses her smile and knits her eyebrows in confusion as she pulls her arm free. "Quit what?"

"Quit using that fake smile! The wind that you're flying with is cold!"

She chuckles to hide her nervousness as she lands in front of him and smiles at him. "What are you talking about? Why do you think my smile's fake?"

Luffy growls in frustration, of how stubborn she is to hide her problems, before he grabs her shoulders and looks her in the eye. "I know your smile's fake, because you make cold wind when you're sad!"

TO BE CONTINUED


	23. Chapter 23

Luffy's outburst about Rose's cold wind has left her completely stunned because this makes him the winner of the bet for her recruitment. When she snaps out of it, she scowls at him and takes his arms off her shoulders. "You're still playing that game?"

Luffy keeps his eyes on her as he refuses to back down. "I'm right aren't I? Your cold wind means-"

"Why the hell are you still trying?!" Rose angrily asks as she grabs him by the collar of his shirt, but he doesn't flinch as she keeps going. "Did you even listen to a goddamn word I said in Yuba?! I'll disappear on you guys when the comet comes, so why are you still trying to recruit me?!"

Luffy narrows his eyes at the excuse as he answers her. "Because you won't disappear!"

"You don't know that!"

"Yes I do, because you'll finish the research by then! You can stop yourself from disappearing if you don't want to leave!"

Most of the wind girl's anger fades from his confidence in her succeeding, something that she rarely received in her world, and lets go of his shirt. She tiredly sighs as she tries to figure out what to do. _*This is Luffy after all; he's not the type to doubt someone's dream. But, if he knew that I know about his past along with what Ace's future could be...*_

She takes a step back while she glares at him. "Then let me ask you this. Do you remember the friend I told you about that came here from another world?"

Luffy nods at the question, so she continues her attempt to drive him off. "She's a demon that has knowledge of both the past and future of this world. She even knows your future along with the rest of the crew's, and can use it to hurt everyone."

The captain widens his eyes at the new information. "You're serious?!"

She slowly nods as she tightens her fists at the memory of Sanji, Usopp and Nami's reactions to her knowledge, but nonetheless she asks him her question. "If she was here what would you do?"

He blinks at the off topic question before he blankly answers her. "I'd ask if she can poop."

Rose widens her eyes at the simple, yet serious, answer before she grits her teeth and covers her face. "Are you fucking kidding me right now?"

Luffy freezes at her reaction when he sees her starting to tremble. "Hey, are you-"

He stops himself when she lifts her head back and starts laughing loudly while she hugs her sides. She collapses on her knees from laughing so much and tries to hold it in, but fails miserably. "Hahaha, o-of all the q-questions, t-that's what you'd ask?! S-seriously?! Hahahaha!"

He blinks at her sudden laughter, but seeing her genuinely smiling again causes him to laugh along with her as he watches her recover.

She takes a deep breath to get the remaining laughter out of her system as she stays seated, and wipes away the tears she made from laughing. _*This guy's too much. At this rate, even telling him who I am won't scare him off...*_

As her resolve begins to falter, she nervously looks up at Luffy for one last confirmation. "If-if she really did know your crew's past and future, would you be her friend?"

Luffy tilts his head at the question. "You ask a lot of weird questions. If she's your friend then she's not a bad person, so why shouldn't we be friends?"

Rose could practically feel her heart leap at the honest answer, that breaks through her walls, and lets herself start believing that he won't turn away from her or her past. She slowly shakes her head to stop herself from getting too emotional and looks away from him. "I just wanted to make sure. Sorry, I know my questions are pretty odd. That being said..."

Luffy hums in confusion when Rose raises a hand up for him to shake with a small grin. "That's just one of the many quirks you're gonna have to put up with from your new crew member."

He widens his eyes at the hand before he starts smiling. "Really?!"

She nods as she keeps her hand up for him. "Yup, you guessed right about my wind and a bet's a bet. Travelling with you guys might help me get some answers too. You can't complain if I really do vanish though."

Luffy's smile goes from ear to ear as he grabs her hand. "That's fine since I know you're not disappearing." He pulls her up into his embrace while he laughs in victory. "Shishishi, you're finally joining the crew! This is gonna be awesome!"

Rose tenses up at the hug while her cheeks heat up, but for the first time since they've met she doesn't pull away. Instead, she slowly hugs him back and buries her face in his shoulder to hide the tears of joy escaping her eyes.

Luffy widens his eyes at the light breeze flowing off her to feel that it's warm and pulls away. "Are you ok?! What does warm wind mean?!"

Rose freezes at the question to see that she's creating another mood breeze and stops it while she wipes her tears. She giggles at the surprised look on his face and waves dismissively. "Relax, it's nothing bad. My warm wind means I'm happy."

The captain blinks at the explanation before he smiles back. "Ok, but you can't make any more cold wind. Captain's orders."

She chuckles at the childish demand as she starts floating. "I'll try not to. Let's get inside."

Luffy nods as Rose lifts them up with her wind. As they start heading to the open window, Luffy curiously looks at her as a question floats in his mind. "Hey Rose, where is the girl from another world anyway?"

The brunette tenses up at the question as they reach the window. She rubs the back of her head while she looks up at the sky as if it has an answer to her situation. "Umm, you see, she's-!"

"GUYS, LUFFY FOUND HER!"

Rose stops herself from Nami's shouting and looks inside to see her running into the room with Usopp and Sanji following. She looks from the trio to Luffy, who's looking at her in confusion, then back to the room where the three pirates are waiting for them.

She nervously looks down with a frown as she remembers the others' reactions to her research. _*Luffy's reaction is a special case. The rest of the crew could react to me and my research just like how these three did. I honestly don't want to know what Robin would do if she finds out that I know about Ohara...*_

She quietly sighs at her situation and comes to a decision. _*I'll keep quiet for now. I'll wait until after the whole crew's together and then decide on a good time to tell them...*_

Rose turns to Luffy with a stern look on her face and speaks quietly. "I don't know where she'll end up, but I know she's ok."

Luffy blinks at the half truth, but he doesn't press on it as they land in the room. Once inside, the pair was instantly confronted by the three pirates.

"There you are Rose, we almost thought you left. Are you alright?" Usopp asks worriedly.

Rose nods with a small smile as she rubs the back of her head. "Yea, I'm ok. I just had to clear my head."

Sanji looks at her with guilt still evident on his face from how he reacted. "I'm really sorry we scared you off. I should've known better. With your research you would bring beautiful angels here than dem- Ow!"

Nami cuts him off by punching him on the head. "Shut the hell up! That's not the point!"

Usopp sighs at the chef's antics before he turns to Rose. "We really are sorry; it was all just a real shock to us."

Rose widens her eyes at the apologies before she raises her hands defensively. "It-it's ok, you don't have to apologize... Now that we're crew mates, let's just put this behind us."

Nami blinks at the last sentence then widens her eyes in shock. "Wait, crew mates?!"

Luffy nods with a big smile. "I figured out what her cold wind means, so she's in the crew!"

The three pirates look at Luffy in complete shock as they process the news.

Rose shuffles a bit when their stares turn to her and only fuels her anxiety. _*Maybe this was a mistake...*_

She looks away from the stares while she tries to find the right thing to say. "Look, I-!"

"Finally!" Rose flinches from their outburst and looks to see the boys smiling in relief.

Nami tiredly sighs as she frowns at Luffy. "It's about time that you figured it out! I had half a mind to tell you what her cold wind meant!"

Rose widens her eyes at the statement. "Wait, you knew?!"

"As soon as you made that wind after Ace left." Usopp says while Sanji starts grinning in excitement.

"Now I have two beautiful ladies to cook for!"

Luffy widens his eyes at the statement before he starts running out of the room. "Oh yeah, we gotta eat! Come on!"

He runs out with Sanji and Usopp following.

Rose blinks at the sudden departure, but wastes no time to start following them when Nami grabs her shoulder to stop her.

She looks back to see Nami looking at her with a concerning look on her face. "Are you really ok with this Rose?"

The brunette nods at the question with a small smile. "Yea, being with you guys has been amazing. Besides, since my research's taboo I'd become the World Government's enemy at some point anyway."

She stops herself when she mentioned her dream and frowns at the navigator as she puts her guard up. "Look, I promise that I'm not planning to use the comet to hurt anyone. If you have any problems with me or my research just tell me and-"

Nami stops her by flicking her on the forehead. "Stop that, I want you to stay with us too."

Rose rubs her forehead and blinks at her comment while Nami smiles at her. "We all have big dreams to follow so you'll be fine here. Like you said, let's put this behind us ok?"

Rose slowly nods with a sheepish smile as she follows her new crew mate out of the room, and into the grand dining hall where everyone is waiting for them. Once they reach their seats, they don't waste their time eating while the noisy meal began.

As Rose quietly eats she can't help but feel a pair of eyes watching her, and looks to her right to see Zoro sitting next to her with a shit eating smirk gracing his face. "What?"

"I heard you finally lost your stubborn contest with Luffy."

She twitches an eyebrow at the remark. "Yup, you guys are stuck with me now." She pauses when she comes up with an idea and grins at the swordsman. "Hey, since we're crew mates now, can you train me in swords? I'm keeping the sword I got at the casino."

Zoro blinks at the request before he grabs his booze. "No way, I don't teach."

Rose widens her eyes at the refusal when he makes a side comment. "I could use a sparring partner now and again though. Just don't complain that I'm not nice to beginners."

The wind girl brightens up at the offer before she returns his smirk. "As long as you don't complain when I send you flying."

Zoro takes a swig of his liquor before he snickers at her rebuttal. "Deal."

Rose grins at the agreement when she sees Luffy's hand coming towards her meal so she stabs his hand to block him.

Luffy takes his hand back and rubs the small wound before he scowls at Rose. "Quit being stingy!"

Rose snickers at the complaint as she grabs another fork with her free hand, so she can eat, while she points the utensil she used to protect her food at him. "You know the rules captain; if you want my food then you gotta be faster than me."

Luffy takes the challenge head on as he makes more of an effort to try to take her food along with everyone else's, but Rose doesn't give in as she blocks his hands at every turn.

As Vivi, her father, and everyone else is having the time of their lives Rose couldn't help but laugh along with them and grow a little hopeful. _*Maybe I'll be ok here. It's still better to wait until at least after the whole crew shows up. But, since I won't have a lot of future knowledge left by then they might not see it as so weird. Compared to the other stuff in this world anyway.*_

She chuckles at her thoughts as she enjoys herself while protecting her food from her new captain for the rest of the meal.

* * *

Once dinner was finished, most of the group wasted no time going into the segregate baths. Rose however, hesitates as she stays by the bath's doorway to make sure that her towel can't fall off her slim body by tucking the corner to the top edge in as tightly as possible.

Vivi looks back from her spot outside the bathtub to see the brunette lurking by the doorway. "Is everything alright?"

Rose quickly nods as she finishes tightening the towel and walks in. "Yea, just wanted to make sure this wasn't loose."

Nami raises an eyebrow at the pale girl's shyness as she takes a seat on a small stool just outside the tub and exposes her back. "You can relax you know. We're all girls here."

"Right." Rose says as she goes into the tub to go to one of the waterfalls while picking up some soap. She ignores the draining feeling in her body from getting wet and starts washing her long, straight, hair under the waterfall.

Nami on the other hand, begins to relax as she lets Vivi wash her back and looks around the extravagant bath. "This place is amazing. I wonder if ships can have a bath like this."

Vivi nods at the assumption. "I don't see why not, this world is so large after all. I mean we saw giants, dinosaurs, and even cherry blossoms blooming in winter. There's so much to see that you can't count."

The navigator grins at the excited girl as she grabs a bucket. "Did you decide if you want to join yet?"

The princess widens her eyes at the question before she slowly shakes her head and finishes scrubbing. "Not yet."

Nami sighs before she rinses off her back. "Well alright, but you need to decide soon."

Vivi slowly nods as she stays seated while Nami goes behind her to wash her back.

Rose grins back at the pair as she washes out the soap from her hair and gets out of the tub. She shakes her head, to get some of the water out, then looks up in shock to see all of the boys, except for Zoro, looking over the wall from their side of the bath. She twitches an eyebrow at the perverts, but freezes when she sees that, while most of them are generally looking around, Luffy's the only one paying attention to her.

She couldn't stop the blush from coming onto her pale face when she sees his big, dark, eyes staring at her with innocent curiosity than with perverted intentions. _*Dammit, don't look so innocent when you're peeping!*_

"WHAT ARE YOU ALL DOING?!" Vivi yells with a blush decorating her face when she finds the boys staring at them.

Rose snaps out of her daze while she's still blushing and angrily cracks her knuckles. "I hope you bastards enjoyed the show, because you're all paying with a broken nose!"

The men flinch when they see her flying towards them, but Nami grabs her ankle and pulls her down. "Relax Rose, I got this."

Rose blinks at the offer to pretend that she doesn't know what she's gonna do. "What are you gonna do? I could just punch them right now."

"This will last longer than a normal punch."

Rose tiredly sighs before she steps back and turns around to leave. "Fine, you can have them. I'm gonna go dry off."

The boys look at the girls in confusion as Nami walks to the edge of the tub and starts unfolding her towel. "Happiness Punch."

As Nami knocks the boys out with her body, Rose walks out of the bath and uses her wind to blow the water off her body. She quickly changes into a pair of jeans as well as a long sleeve, green, t-shirt then looks down to see that the shirt covers her necklace.

She decides to let it stay hidden in her shirt for now as she grabs her bag and reaches the doorway, but stops when she sees Amir walking past the doorway. When she sees him walk past the door to go to his room, she runs into the room across from her to fly out the window. _*Before I go I need to ask Cassim more about why it's illegal.*_

She flies towards the tower where a depressed astronomer is looking through his telescope to look at the night sky.

Cassim sighs in disappointment of losing a potential apprentice as he looks at the constellations to try to cheer himself up. "Alright, there's the little dipper, along with the big dipper. Over there we have..."

He widens his eyes when he sees a distorted freckled face in the telescope. "AN ALIEN?!"

He yells in shock as he jumps back and slips to fall on his butt. He catches his breath as he looks over the telescope to see that it's just Rose flying in front of it.

She chuckles from the jumpy reaction as she flies over the telescope to get into the room "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."

Cassim slowly nods as he stands up. "It's fine, I should've guessed it was you. What are you doing here?"

"I just want to talk to you one on one before I leave."

Cassim slowly sighs. "I assume it's about Hell's comet?"

Rose furrows her eyebrows about the demeaning name, but she holds back from arguing with him as she stands in front of the telescope. "I just want to know why studying the Timore comet is illegal."

The astronomer raises an eyebrow at the request. "Didn't your parents tell you why when they were tutoring you? Or that it's even illegal?"

"They didn't, our country is secluded from the World Government, so I had no idea."

Cassim freezes at the explanation and sees this as a way to keep her as an apprentice, so his eyes on the girl. "Now that you know, is there any way that I can change your mind from doing this? If you do, I might be able to let you stay."

Rose doesn't back down as she looks at him with determination in her eyes. "No way, this piece of the universe needs to be studied too."

As the astronomer studies the girl's serious facial expression, he sees no shred of doubt in her resolve, so he sighs in defeat. "Very well, I'll tell you what I know about the reasoning. Only so you know what you're getting yourself into."

"Thank you." Rose says as she grabs her journal and pen then looks at him with eagerness in her eyes.

He softly frowns at her excitement before he begins his explanation. "Years ago, some time before the death of Gold Roger, there was a team of scientists in the World Government studying a certain crystal."

She perks up at the mention of a crystal as she writes her notes and feigns confusion. "A crystal?"

He nods as he thinks hard to remember the name of it. "Yes, the name escapes me but there was something special about it. Something about having two colors on the same stone and able to absorb radiation from various sources..."

He shakes his head to brush it off before he gets back on track. "Anyway, one night when a team of forty was working to understand the gem, the comet flew through our world's atmosphere. It was said that after their crystal samples absorbed its energy, almost all of the researchers vanished into thin air."

Rose widens her eyes at the story as she stops writing. "Wait, what?! Did any of them come back?!"

"No, not a single one was seen in this world again. The Gorosei were completely baffled when they heard, and it didn't take long for word to get out. It wasn't until a group of astronomers, who were studying the comet at the time, explained their research to the World Government that they understood the phenomenon. Once they learned that this comet has the ability to not only take people out of this world, but bring others here it became a taboo."

Rose frowns at the explanation. "I still don't understand how this whole demon propaganda came about."

"Think about it from this perspective. If people left our world with knowledge that other worlds won't understand, then what makes it impossible for others to come here through Hell's comet? These..."

He shifts his eyes to find a proper wording for them until he finds one that fits the description for those that don't belong here. "These 'outsiders' could have hidden abilities, gadgets, or knowledge that we don't grasp and could do god knows what to us."

"Or they could just be regular people trying to live their lives like we do." Rose says as she gets back to work on her notes to keep her temper under control.

Cassim softly sighs at her defensiveness before he sits down. "I understand where you're coming from, but the World Government won't take any chances. It's better safe than sorry when it comes to this."

She finishes her notes then scowls at the astronomer. "Did the World Government ever find someone from another world?"

Cassim shakes his head as he gives her a look of sympathy. "I haven't heard of any being found, but I don't think you'd want to know what would happen if they did. I heard that the astronomers who explained the comet's phenomenon to the Gorosei were sent to Impel Down, after they refused to abandon the research. Their fates were probably merciful compared to what the outsiders would get."

Rose's grip on the book begins to tighten in fury of this government's cruelty and decides that she's heard enough. She puts the journal back in her bag before she thinks back on his story of the disappearing scientists.

Only one question comes to mind when she thinks of how they vanished to unknown lands, and looks him in the eyes. "I have one more question. The researchers that disappeared, do you know if any children disappeared with them that night?"

The astronomer raises an eyebrow at the odd question. "Honestly, I'm not sure, why do you ask?"

"Curiosity." She says before she turns to leave. "Thank you for telling me the back story. This has been really helpful."

Cassim widens his eyes to see that she's leaving before he gets up, and goes in front of her to stop her. "Why are you doing this? The World Government is too dangerous to have as an enemy."

Rose chuckles at his worry before she shrugs. "I'm not scared, I joined the pirates so I'm their enemy now anyway. As for why well, I want to finish what my parents started. Thanks again for everything and good luck with your studies."

She waves him off, and flies out of the window to leave the astronomer completely speechless at the fact that her entire family is in on this research.

As Rose soars towards the medical bay window, she can't help but grin while she pulls her necklace out of her shirt and kisses the crystal. _*My theory about how I got here was right! I freaking love this necklace!*_

She laughs in triumph of the confirmation before she thinks back on Cassim's disappearance story. She loses her smile, when she thinks of how it resembles the story she heard as a child from her parents every time she asked about how they started their research. The only explanation they'd give her was a story of a young child, no older than five, seeing the comet one night from another land and was suddenly transported to a back alley in New York City.

She stops to look down at her crystal that's shining in the moonlight, and furrows her eyebrows as she wonders if her family's story is connected to the disappearances in this world. _*If children also vanished with the researchers that night then maybe it's possible that...*_

She shakes her head to get rid of the thought as she lets go of the necklace, and heads to the medical bay while she mutters under her breath. "One mystery at a time. Right now, I need to focus on three things. Getting some answers on both the comet and this crystal. And surviving the crew's adventures..."

She sighs at her crazy situation, yet she can't help but smile at the new adventures that come with it as she flies into the room just when Vivi, Carue, and the crew walk in.

Nami looks to see that Rose is already in the room. "Good, you're here too." She turns to the others as she makes an announcement. "Guys, we're leaving Alabasta tonight."

Chopper widens his eyes at the announcement. "What?! We're leaving already?!"

Zoro nods as he looks at the captain. "With Luffy awake now's a good time."

"The marines are on the move after us too." Sanji says.

Luffy frowns in disappointment. "Can't we stay a little longer?"

"We're leaving now!" Nami says when a guard walks in with a snail in his hand.

"Straw Hats, there's a call for you!"

Usopp raises an eyebrow at the announcement. "A call? From who?"

The guard looks down at the snail uneasily. "He says his name is Little Bon Bon."

Rose holds back a chuckle from Mr. 2's nickname as she sits on the bed next to Carue. "You guys know him?"

"Never heard of him." Usopp says as he looks at the snail in confusion.

The guard raises an eyebrow at the complaint as he looks down at the snail. "But he said he's your friend."

Sanji sighs as he goes up to the man. "Let's just answer it." He takes the snail and puts it on the desk before he answers the call.

Once answered the snail starts laughing happily with Bon Clay's voice. "Gyahahaha! It's great to see you! It's me, the okama-!"

He gets cut off when Sanji hangs up on him with a blank look on his face. However, just a few seconds later, the snail starts ringing again and only irritates the chef. "QUIT CALLING!"

Before he can pick up the snail, Luffy stretches his arm from his spot on his bed to grab the snail, and pull it over to him. He answers the call with a scowl on his face. "You're Mr. 2 aren't you?! What do you want?!"

The snail begins to get angry at the nickname. "Don't call me Mr. 2! If the marines tapped the phone then they'll find out who I am!"

Chopper sweat drops at the complaint. "But you just said it!"

Zoro groans at the stalling as he scowls at the snail. "Just get to the point!"

The snail blinks when he remembers what he called for. "Oh yea, I have your ship."

"WHAT WAS THAT?!" Everyone in the crew, except for Rose, yells at him.

Mr. 2 doesn't flinch at the shouts while Rose frowns at the snail. "What are you trying to pull here?"

"I'm not trying to pull anything! I'm protecting your ship from the marines! You can find me and your ship at the upstream of the Sandora River. Come and get it."

Zoro narrows his eyes at invitation. "You really think we'd trust you?!"

"Of course after all." The snail starts smiling from ear to ear just as how Mr. 2 is smiling right now before he answers. "Aren't we friends?"

Luffy stares at the snail seriously for a moment before he nods. "Alright, we'll come get the ship soon."

"See you then!" The snail quickly falls asleep to indicate that Mr. 2 hung up on his end.

Luffy hangs up on the snail while Sanji looks at the snail in confusion. "Think we can trust him?"

Nami drops her shoulders at the situation before she gets ready to pack. "We don't have a choice if he has our ship."

Zoro nods in agreement as he starts packing. "If this is a trap then we'll kick his ass."

The others silently agree as they begin grabbing their things.

Rose puts on her jacket and the belt holding her sword then looks through her bag to see what she's missing. She looks at the tiny pocket at the bottom of the bag, that's sealed with a zipper, and takes a look inside to see that the quarter that came with her to this world is safely inside. _*If Amir couldn't find it when he snooped through here, then it should be safe from any other prying eyes. Doubt a coin could give me away, but it'll definitely raise some questions.*_

She seals the pocket and goes through the bag while the others keep packing.

The princess however, sits to the side and watches uneasily about her friends leaving and the offer she's been given to join them. "Everyone..."

The crew stops what they're doing and looks to see Vivi nervously looking down while tightening the fists on her lap. "What should I do about the decision to join you?"

The group looks at each other for a brief moment before Nami steps up. "We'll give you twelve hours. Tomorrow at midday, we'll sail past the east coast while we're escaping. We can't stop there, but if you decide to join us we'll get you onboard. The marines will be on our tail, so this will be the only way we can do it."

Vivi slowly nods as she watches her friends attach the end of a rope ladder to the window and unravel it to reach the ground.

"You gotta be there Vivi!" Luffy says when Usopp whacks him on the head.

"Don't tell her that!"

"What?! You don't want her to come?!"

"Of course not, but it's her decision!"

Rose chuckles at the childish argument as she watches the group filing out. When it's her turn to go to the window, she stops when Vivi taps her shoulder.

She turns around to see the princess pointing to a dark blue guitar case that's leaning on the wall. "It has the guitar from yesterday, you can have it. I'm sorry that you couldn't stay."

Rose blinks at the offer and grins at her. "Thank you, and it's alright. I still appreciate that you'd let me meet Cassim. I learned a lot from him." She takes the straps on the left and right sides of the guitar case, and ties them to the straps on her backpack. She sees the last of the crew starting to climb down, so she starts heading to the window.

Before she climbs over, she gives the princess one last smile. "Good luck with your decision."

She doesn't give her another glance as she climbs down to join her new crew. She makes it down to see that the others are getting on the backs of the Super Spot-Billed Duck Squad. She looks to see that all six of the ducks have already been taken.

She begins to use her wind to fly when Nami rides up to her on a duck wearing a white cap, sunglasses, and a bottle hanging from his neck. "You can ride with me instead."

Rose blinks at the offer, but she doesn't think twice before she sits behind her and wraps her arms around the navigator's waist.

Up in the room that they've left behind, the princess can only watch as her friends ride off into the night. When she can no longer see her friends, Vivi pries herself away from the window. As she looks around the empty room, she stops when she spots an envelope on the bed Rose was sitting on.

She opens the envelope that's marked 'Vivi and the crew', and widens her blue eyes when she sees it holding almost every copy of the pictures Rose took from their Alabasta adventure. She skims through the photos and freezes when she sees the one with her, Rose, and Nami together.

She softly frowns at the photo just before Carue quacks in concern. She snaps out of it and smiles at the duck. "I'm fine Carue, we should get some rest. We have a big day tomorrow."

The duck quietly nods as he keeps his best friend company for the rest of the night.

* * *

As the sun begins to rise for the new morning, Mr. 2 waits on the deck of the Going Merry for the ship's owners to arrive while his crew waits on the swan boat docked behind him.

He begins to tap his foot impatiently as he leans on the railing for any sign of them, when he sees the crew riding on a band of ducks.

The ballerina man stands on the railing and begins to pirouette. "WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG?!"

The crew ignores the okama as they reach the shore line and get off the ducks.

"Thanks for the ride." Rose says as she gets off the duck with her bags in tow.

Chopper gets off his duck before he grins at the squad. "Thank you, be careful on your way back!"

The ducks quack their goodbyes as they wave them off and start running back to the capital.

"SEE YA!" Luffy yells as he and the others wave them off.

Mr. 2 begins tearing up at the farewell as he waves with them. "Goodbye! I'm sure we'll meet again someday!"

He snaps out of it when he realizes that he shouldn't be bidding them farewell. "WAIT, THIS ISN'T RIGHT!" He stomps his foot angrily as he glares at the crew. "What's the meaning of this?! A friend's been waiting for you this whole time, and you don't even give me a 'hello'?!"

Rose chuckles at the complaint before she casually waves to him. "Hello Mr. 2."

Mr. 2 blinks at the greeting before he smiles at her. "Hello to you too."

Usopp widens his eyes at the greeting before he turns to Mr. 2. "Quit acting like we're friends!"

The okama sighs as he sits on the railing. "I'm not your enemy anymore since Baroque Works is finished, so let's forget the past. I even did you this favor to show that we're friends."

"What are you talking about?!" Luffy asks while some of his crew members starts climbing aboard.

Mr. 2 points to the ship's head while making his case. "Think about it, if I didn't move the ship from the coast line what do you think would happen?"

"The marines would've found it." Nami says as she walks onto the ship.

He nods at the assumption as he gets off the railing. "Exactly, the coast is completely covered by marines now! It would've been spotted in a second!"

Luffy, Usopp and Chopper widen their eyes at the news as they run onto the ship.

"So you really helped us?! Why?!" Chopper asks when the okama begins to smile at them.

"Isn't it obvious? It's because we're friends."

The three pirates beam at his answer before they start dancing with him like they're old friends.

Rose chuckles at the dance as she flies up, so that she's eye level to the others, but not on the deck yet. She looks back at the country, that she tried to make her home, and chuckles to herself as she grabs the railing. _*At least I can say that I tried to stay out of this. Whatever happens now, no regrets.*_

She swings her legs over the rail and goes below deck while the others get ready to sail. As she looks around the hall, she pauses when she sees pink flower petals on the floor. She grins at the petals, that can only come from Robin's powers, and confirms that the archaeologist is on board with them. She goes to the storage room and places her luggage inside, to avoid a confrontation with Robin, before she goes back outside.

Once she reaches the deck, she widens her eyes to see that both the crew and Mr. 2's ships are surrounded by eight marine ships. The crew works to outrun them, but they're completely blockaded by the ships that are now sending at least twenty large black spears towards them.

"GUYS, DEFLECT THE CANNONS!" Nami yells as she rushes to the helm to find an opening to steer to.

Usopp and Chopper run off to grab the cannon while the others get to work on deflecting the spears.

Rose quickly flies up and uses her wind to blast enough wind out of her hands to send one of the spears spinning. It crashes into another spear, that's flying next to it, and sends them both into the water. She grins in satisfaction as she keeps working to block as many as she can.

However, the more that she and the others deflected, only more would come to replace them. When a few managed to stab the ship, Chopper ran below deck to start patching the holes.

"Dammit, protecting it from both sides isn't working!" Mr. 2 says as he kicks a spear away from the ship, but he misses the second one that came right after.

Luffy growls in frustration when the spears stop and they begin to hear shouting from one of the ships.

"THERE'S NOWHERE FOR YOU TO RUN!" The crew looks in confusion to see a pink hair marine with iron knuckles on his hands smirking at the crew from one ship.

On the ship next to his a hypnotist marine stands at the front of the ship with his hypnosis ring ready. "That's right Fullbody. No one can escape the Black Spear."

Luffy looks at the hypnotist in confusion and widens his eyes when he sees that it's Jango from the Black Cat pirates. "HYPNO GUY?! AREN'T YOU A PIRATE TOO?!"

Sanji looks at the pink haired man, that he kicked the crap out of at the Baratie, but he forgot about him. "Who's the pink haired marine?"

Jango ignores the confusion as he lift his hypnosis ring to his face. "I'll show you that I'm playing on the right side now. Take a look at this ring..."

Before Jango can hypnotize anyone the crew's cannon managed to hit their ship and blow it up.

"BUDDY!" Fullbody calls out worriedly for his friend when the burning ship leans towards his ship and breaks it in half.

"Holy shit..." Everyone on the Merry widens their eyes to Usopp's comment, and looks to see the stunned sniper staring at the sinking ships with the cannon he just used right next to him.

Luffy's jaw drops at the cannon, that's still smoking from the use, before he smiles at Usopp. "THAT WAS AWESOME USOPP!"

Usopp snaps out of his daze before he looks at the crew then back to the boats repeatedly, and then he smirks triumphantly. "Th-that's right! It was all according to plan! That'll teach those marines to mess with us!"

Mr. 2 grins at the victory before he looks at two other ships that are in their way. "Well done Long Nose! Now just blow up those two ships and we can outrun them!"

Usopp gets to work on getting the cannon ready when a pair of Mr. 2's men from his swan ship calls out to him. "MR. 2!"

"WHAT IS IT?!" The okama calls back to them when the pair looks back at the commander ship sailing towards them.

"BLACK CAGE HINA IS COMING UP FAST!"

"WHAT?!" Mr. 2 runs to the back of the ship to see that they're right and stares at the ship in sheer terror.

Zoro raises an eyebrow at his distress as he looks at the ship. "What's so great about this black cage?"

"You mean you never heard of her?! Black Cage Hina's one of the strongest marine commanders in these parts! We gotta run!" Mr. 2 looks to see that the Straw Hats aren't steering in the direction he instructed them. "What are you doing?! We gotta head south and get out of here!"

Luffy doesn't move as he looks to the island. "You guys can run if you want, but we have to go east."

The okama widens his eyes at the statement. "What?! Why?!"

"We have an appointment. We need to go to the east coast by 12." Nami says as she gets ready to steer them east.

Mr. 2 scowls at their recklessness before he gets ready to jump aboard his own boat. "Hmph, that's ridiculous! What kind of treasure is worth getting killed by Hina for?!"

Rose chuckles at his rashness as she crosses her arms over her chest. "We're not going there for gold."

Mr. 2 looks at her in confusion when Luffy smiles at him. "We're going to pick up our friend."

The okama became completely shocked, at how they were willing to risk their lives for a friend, and decides to help them. He turns to his men with a smile on his face and new determination in his eyes. "Everyone, if we run away now we won't be worthy of being called okama!"

Every pirate looks at him in confusion as he continues to motivate his men. "If we can't sacrifice our lives for our friends then there's no way we can rest in peace! Who's with me?!"

The okamas under Mr. 2 begin to tear up in awe before they cheer in agreement.

Mr. 2 tears up in pride of his friends and doesn't wipe away the streams on his face as he turns to the Straw Hats. "Straw Hat Luffy and all you rascals, please listen carefully. Once I get on my ship you all head east and pick up your friend."

The crew looks at him in shock as he touches his face with his right hand and transforms into Luffy. "We'll take care of those marines for you! Farewell my friends!"

He jumps onto his ship and wastes no time in steering south to begin the decoy plan.

Nami doesn't look back as she steers the ship to the east, but the rest of the crew can only stare as Hina's ship speeds off after Mr. 2's ship.

As the battle rage on between the swan and marine ships Luffy, Sanji, Usopp, and Chopper cry for their friend's sacrifice. "BON CLAY, WE WON'T FORGET YOU!"

Rose stares at the battle sadly as she flies up to where the sails are. She solemnly salutes the okama ship out of respect before she turns around, and lightly blasts wind from her hands to hit the sails so that the Merry goes faster.

The wind girl doesn't give the battle another glance as she focuses on the task at hand. However, as the ship sails off she silently promises that if she makes it to the Impel Down arc that she will repay her debt to the okama.

* * *

As the crew reaches the east coast, they begin to hear Vivi's speech from the speakers that are on the island. "I had an adventure over deep oceans and dark tides in search of hope. The ocean that I faced was vast and held things that I could only dream of. There were times when the waves were peaceful and times when the waves were so violent as if they were laughing at the weak. But in that darkness I found a tiny ship that pushed me forward and taught me not to give up."

Zoro looks to the coast and can't find the princess. "That's definitely Vivi's voice making that speech."

Sanji slowly nods as he starts smoking. "It's a ceremony at Alubarna. It looks like she decided not to come after all..."

Luffy refuses to believe it as he stands by the railing and searches for the princess. "It's just Vivi's voice. She'll be here."

Nami quietly sighs as she gets ready to steer the ship. "It's almost 12, we can't stay for too long."

"Wait, let me take a look first." Rose says as she stays flying by the sails and scans the area for the princess.

Usopp looks at the back of the ship and he widens his eyes when he sees two marine ships sailing towards them. "GUYS, WE GOT TWO MARINE SHIPS COMING!"

Nami steers the ship away from the island without sparing the island another glance. "FULL SPEED AHEAD THEN! WE GOTTA GO!"

Sanji looks at Luffy, who's keeping his eyes on the island, and sighs. "Forget it Luffy, she has her life as a princess."

The captain ignores his words as he looks up at Rose. "YOU SEE HER ANYWHERE ROSE?!"

Rose keeps looking as she flies with the ship and widens her eyes when she sees Vivi and Carue waving at the coast. "I see her and Carue!"

The pirates widen their eyes when they look at the coast, and find the princess and the duck.

"Vivi-chwan!" Sanji calls out with hearts in his eyes while the others happily smile for their friend.

Rose looks down at the crew with a smile before she gets ready to fly over to the coast.

"Everyone, I'm here to say goodbye!"

Everyone on the ship stops when they hear Vivi's announcement while the princess keeps talking through the speaker "I can't go with you, but I want to thank you for all that you've done for me!"

Rose lands on the deck with a soft frown as she looks back at the island with the rest of the crew. _*Even though I knew she was gonna say no this still sucks...*_

She quietly sighs then softly grins as Vivi continues her farewell speech with tears in her eyes. "Even though I want to go with you, I really love this country! So I can't leave!"

Vivi doesn't bother to wipe away the tears that are streaming down her face as she keeps speaking. "E-even though I want to stay here... If we ever meet again, will you let me be your friend?!"

The crew begins to softly grin at the princess' question while the marines look at her in utter shock.

Luffy goes up to the railing and starts calling out to her. "NO MATTER WHAT WE-"

Nami quickly rushes to her captain and covers his mouth with her hand to shut him up. "Shut up!"

Luffy looks at her in confusion as she takes her hand off his mouth. "We can't answer her. If the marines found out that we're friends then Vivi will be considered a criminal. We need to leave quietly."

Luffy looks at her seriously for a moment before he turns his back on the princess along with the others.

Vivi sadly frowns at the turned backs when she sees them rolling their left sleeves up. When she and Carue see the black X's on their friends' left arms, to prove that their still friends, they smile in joy as they show their marks to them as well.

Rose grins at the moment as they make it far enough for the island to be too little to be seen, but the marines are still on their tail.

Nami looks back at the marines before she turns to the wind girl. "Rose, can you use your wind on the sail again?"

"Not a problem, let's give these marines a run for their money!" Rose says with a smirk as she flies up to the sails and gives the ship a strong enough tailwind to speed up without damaging the sails.

The wind girl looks back at the ships that are growing smaller in the distance, and she can't help but feel more excited than ever. Not only for her new pirate life, but also for the mysteries that are just waiting for her to uncover in this world.

As the adrenaline from the excitement kicks in, she wastes no time in helping her new crew not only lose the marines, but sail off to their next adventure.

* * *

Once the Going Merry began to speed up, the pursuing marines quickly learned that they were too slow to catch up to the pirates as they watch them escape.

A marine officer on Black Cage Hina's ship couldn't believe what he saw before he turns to his commander, who's watching them through her binoculars. "How can such a rundown ship sail that fast?"

"Because they used a devil fruit user. Hina's so mad right now." Hina says as she takes the binoculars off when a den den mushi starts ringing from the wall.

Once Hina grabs the snail, it began to look like Smoker by having two cigars hanging from its mouth. "Where are you now Hina? We can back you up against the Straw Hats."

Hina twitches an eyebrow at the reminder before she grabs a cigarette from her jacket pocket. "Don't waste your time. Hina lost the Straw Hats when they left the coast."

Smoker couldn't help but grin at the new chance to catch the pirates for himself. "I see, sorry to hear that."

Hina could hear the happiness in his voice when she sees another pirate ship on the horizon. "Men, take us to that pirate ship. Hina needs to take her frustrations out on something."

"YES MA'AM!" Her soldiers quickly get to work on going after the new crew while Hina turns her attention back to the snail.

She grins back at the snail as she finds a good way to tease her comrade. "I wouldn't be too happy if Hina was you Smoker. Hina saw your friend in action."

Smoker raises an eyebrow at the comment. "What friend?"

"The fake hostage your soldiers spoke about. She has a wind devil fruit correct?"

Smoker narrows his eyes at the snail as he holds back his temper. "She has the wind wind fruit, but she's no friend of mine! After that hostage act the little con artist had the nerve to claim that she was just tagging along with the Straw Hats."

Hina giggles at the complaint. "Well, it looks like she's not just tagging along anymore. We all saw her on board the pirate ship, and using her wind to help them get away."

A tick mark begins to grow on Smoker's head as he glares at the snail. "Oh she did huh? In that case, I'm gonna make sure that she can't play innocent anymore!"

Smoker abruptly hangs up his side of the line causing Hina to giggle at his anger before she goes off to take down another pirate crew.

Meanwhile, Smoker lights up his cigars from his chair on the deck of his ship to calm himself down. He looks down at the at the table in front of him to read the new wanted posters made for Luffy and Zoro, that show a bounty of 100 million and 60 million respectively. After he calms down a little he grabs the den den mushi next to the posters and starts dialing.

Tashigi walks onto the deck with two cups and a pot of coffee, and looks to see her captain angrily dialing. "Is everything alright sir?"

Smoker stops dialing when he sees his subordinate and sighs before he hangs up the snail. "Yea, how are you feeling?"

"I'm feeling much better." Tashigi says as she starts pouring coffee for the captain and herself. When she finishes pouring she sees the two wanted posters and widens her eyes when she sees Zoro's bounty. "He has a starting bounty of 60 million?!"

Smoker nods as he stares at the poster. "That's right, he killed about a hundred bounty hunters on Whiskey Peak. He also defeated Daz Bones in Alubarna."

Tashigi was completely shocked at the explanation as she grabs the swordsman's poster. "What?! The assassin?!"

Smoker nods as he grabs his snail and starts dialing to headquarters again. "That's right, he was one of Crocodile's recruits. But now another poster is about to be made. Rose has been spotted on their ship and she helped them escape."

Tashigi looks at him in shock before she furrowed her eyebrows at the news. "So she really is a pirate. I can't believe she deceived us after we tried to help her."

Smoker slowly nods as the snail starts ringing. "After watching her fight those bananadiles, I can easily tell that she hasn't mastered her logia fruit yet. Once she gains that control though, it's going to be hell for all of us. I'm gonna get her bounty set up so she can't play the hostage act, and then we're going after the Straw Hats."

"Yes sir!" Tashigi says as she puts down the poster then goes back below deck to train for the upcoming battles.

As Smoker makes the call to create Rose's bounty, he not only seals her fate as a pirate in this world, but also helps to mark the start of her new journey as a Straw Hat Pirate.

TO BE CONTINUED

* * *

 **A/N: Hello everyone, sorry that this is late, but I wanted to do my best to make this one worthwhile. Funny enough this is the anniversary of when I published my first chapter of this rewrite. This has been a crazy year, but I don't regret revising the story.**

 **Thank you all for your support, and I hope you all have a wonderful Valentine's day.**


	24. Chapter 24

The sun is shining high in the sky as the Merry gracefully sails through the ocean with no more marine ships in pursuit.

Zoro looks around to ensure that no more marines are following them and begins to relax. He looks to see that everyone else is lying down on their stomachs on the upper deck with their arms hanging off the upper railing. "You know we lost them right?"

The crew sadly hums with a cloud of depression hanging over them while they stare at the empty space to their left as if Vivi would magically appear if they stared long enough.

Zoro raises an eyebrow at their attitude as he looks at the empty space. "What's the matter with you guys?"

"WE MISS VIVI!" The crew whines simultaneously as they start crying comical tears.

Zoro rolls his eyes at their depression. "Quit complaining, if you wanted her to stay that badly then you should've dragged her with us."

Chopper widens his tear filled eyes at the comment before he begins the string of insults for the swordsman. "You savage!"

"Prick!" Rose says with Nami following.

"Monster!"

"Marimo!" Sanji says with Luffy following after him.

"Three Sword Style!"

Usopp stops the line of insults and looks at Luffy in confusion. "Three sword style isn't an insult Luffy."

"Four sword style."

"Adding a number to it doesn't make it an insult!"

Zoro groans at the insults and ignores Usopp working to explain a proper insult to Luffy when the door to the lower deck suddenly opens.

"Looks like we lost them. Great work everyone." Everyone in the crew looks to the door in shock to see Nico Robin casually standing by the doorway in a pink button up shirt and a pair of jeans.

Zoro immediately gets ready to fight as he grabs the hilt of his sword. "You're here for revenge?!"

Robin ignores his glare as she looks to see Sanji staring at her with hearts in his eyes. "What a beautiful lady!"

Chopper quickly hides behind a corner with most of his body showing as he stares at Robin nervously. "Who is she?!"

"Nico Robin." Rose says as she casually waves at the stowaway. "It's been a while, good to see you."

Robin giggles at her calmness as she answers her. "It's good to see you too."

Nami freezes at the casual chatter and turns to Rose in confusion. "Why the hell are you being friendly with her?! Didn't you fight her at Rain Base?!"

Rose shrugs off her worries as she shows no fear of the intruder. "Yea, but she helped me out when I was being chased by a marine a few days ago."

"She could've done that to lower your guard!" The redhead gets her clima-tact ready when Robin grows arms out of her and Zoro's bodies to swat the weapons out of their hands.

Robin keeps a stoic smile on her face as she stares at the shocked look on their faces. "Don't point those at me. If I wanted to kill you, I would've done so already."

Nami glares at the woman as she picks up her clima-tact. "When did you get here?!"

Robin calmly grins, as if she's not surrounded by enemies, as she takes a seat on a lawn chair right next to the table. "I've been here since before you left. I hope you don't mind, but I'm borrowing your clothes."

Nami twitches an eyebrow at her attitude while the dark haired woman turns to Luffy. "Monkey D. Luffy, I didn't forget what you did to me."

Sanji stops his love daze when he hears Robin's complaint, and grabs Luffy by the collar. "What did you do to her you bastard?!"

Luffy ignores the shouting as he turns to Robin. "Quit lying, I didn't do anything to you!"

Robin relaxes in her seat as she chuckles at his denial. "No, I remember it clearly. You were pretty rough."

Sanji widens his eyes at her comment, as he imagines the most perverted scenarios, and glares at Luffy while he shakes him. "What the hell's the story here?!"

Rose holds herself back from chuckling at the display when Luffy pushes Sanji away and angrily turns to Robin. "What exactly do you want?!"

"To join your crew." Robin says with a calm smile.

Everyone, but Rose and Chopper, give her a look of shock at the request.

"Why should we let you join?!" Usopp asks worriedly as he stays hidden behind the group.

"Because your captain owes me." Robin says when she thinks back on how at the end of Luffy's battle with Crocodile she was ready to die in the crumbling tomb, but Luffy wouldn't let her as he carried her out of the tomb.

She keeps her small smile on her face as she gives them her explanation. "You made me live even though I wanted to die. I have nowhere to go now that Baroque Works is finished, so I want to join your crew."

Luffy blinks at the explanation before he nods. "I see, ok, you're in."

"WHAT?!" Nami, Usopp and Zoro yell out in shock while Sanji happily runs to the kitchen.

Luffy chuckles at his friends' reactions before he smiles at them. "You don't have to worry; she's not a bad person."

"I'll be the judge of that!" Usopp says as he takes a seat from a chair that's across the table from where Robin is. "Before we can accept you, I need to give you a proper interview to see if we can trust you!"

Robin giggles at the sniper's cautious behavior before she rests her arms on the table. "Very well, ask away."

Usopp nods as he begins to interrogate the newest crew member for any hidden motives.

Nami tiredly sighs at the new situation as she and Zoro scatter to different parts of the deck where they can keep an eye on Robin.

Rose, Luffy, and Chopper however, quickly become distracted when Robin sprouts an arm off the deck to entertain them. The three of them sit close to the arm, to get a better look, as they become fixated on it.

Rose grins at the arm, as it sways from side to side, and admires it without the fear of it turning on her like back in Rain Base. As she watches the arm bend to her right she doesn't see the three other arms springing behind her and the boys until they pull them to the left. As the three of them collapse, they look to see the culprits and laugh at the arms.

Meanwhile, Robin grins at the entertained kids when Usopp hits the table. "Pay attention!"

Robin doesn't falter in her smile as she turns to the sniper and rests her head on the palm of her hand. "Sorry, what was the question?"

"What's your profession?"

"I'm an archaeologist."

Usopp blinks at the answer. "An archaeologist?!"

Robin nods as she tells him her story. "It runs in my family. I became an archeologist when I was eight and then I had a bounty on my head."

Usopp widens his eyes at the bounty. "You got a bounty when you were just eight?!"

"That's right; I was chased by the World Government for the past twenty years. I faced a lot of things on my own, and in order to survive I had to join various criminal organizations like Baroque Works to protect myself."

Rose looks over at the archaeologist with a soft look on her face as she listens to her story, and thinks of how her own research could've brought her on the same path as Robin's. She continues to stare on sadly until she feels four arms grow on her sides with two on each side. She looks down in shock to see one arm on each side hold her arms up while the others bend, to reach her armpits, and start tickling her.

Chopper and Luffy widen their eyes at the tickle attack before arms also grew on their own bodies and start tickling them. Rose couldn't stop herself from laughing as she falls on her back and tries to free herself, but the arms were too strong as they keep tickling her.

Robin doesn't let her arms give in as she continues her interview as if she has nothing to do with the extra limbs. "While I worked under these organizations, I acquired a good number of skills that the crew can use."

The sniper hums at the interesting quality. "Really? What would you say is your best skill?"

Robin chuckles at the question while she gives him an answer in a confident tone. "Assassination."

Usopp immediately tears up in fear as he calls out to his captain. "LUFFY, I'VE COME TO THE CONCLUSION THAT SHE'S TOO DANGEROUS TO JOIN US!"

He looks to see that his captain, Chopper and Rose are still laughing from Robin's tickling, and grows frustrated. "CAN'T YOU GUYS BE SERIOUS?!"

Nami shakes her head at the trio's antics as she steps towards the table. "We can't rely on them for this." She smirks at Robin as she crosses her arms over her chest. "Don't think that we forgot that you were vice president of a criminal organization. You can fool Luffy, but you won't fool me. If I see any funny business then you're done, got it?"

Usopp applauds Nami's tenacity while Robin sighs and loses her smile.

"I understand. Oh, by the way..." Robin digs into her pocket and pulls out a pouch up for the navigator to see. "I nabbed these jewels from Crocodile before I left."

Everyone could practically see the stars flying around Nami as she runs up to Robin with a large smile and beli signs in her eyes. "Oh, what I meant to say was welcome to the crew Robin!"

Zoro and Usopp cover their faces with their hands as they shake their head in disbelief of Nami's quick change of heart.

Zoro tiredly sighs as he takes his hand off his face. "I should've figured this would happen..."

"Oh Robin my sweet~!" Usopp and Zoro widen their eyes when they hear Sanji's love filled voice, and see him twirling towards her while he speaks one romantic line after another while he delivers her a fruit parfait.

Usopp sweat drops at the chef's antics before he sighs. "He was a lost cause from the start..."

Zoro nods in agreement. "It looks like we're the only ones left on our guard."

Usopp nods as he crosses his arms over his chest. "You got that right. We're the only ones who won't be won over so easily!"

"Usopp!" The sniper turns to the sound of his captain's voice and he freezes when he sees that Robin grew a pair of arms out of the sides of Luffy's head to look like antlers.

Luffy mimics Chopper's adorable smile as he imitates the reindeer's voice. "Chopper~!"

The long nosed man immediately breaks his composure at the sight and starts laughing at the impersonation along with Rose, Luffy, and Chopper.

Zoro sweat drops at the sight before he gives up and walks towards the front of the ship for some peace and quiet.

As Nami counts the gems in the pouch with a large smile, and Sanji is love struck by Robin's beauty, the archaeologist looks to see Zoro heading to the front of the ship.

Robin follows him to the front of the ship and looks back at the lively crowd that she left. "Are they always this cheerful?"

Zoro hums in acknowledgement as he crosses his arms over his chest. "Yea, they are."

Robin happily grins as she cancels out the arms that were entertaining Luffy and the others, and then stares out at the sea with a calm smile.

Zoro scowls at the calm woman's smile for he can't get a read on what's going on in her head, but he doesn't confront her as he goes off to train.

Robin looks around at the horizon before she calls to Nami. "Are we on course Navigator-san?"

Nami snaps out of her trance with the jewels and looks at her log pose that's pointing ahead with a grin. "Yes we are! If we keep going ahead we should reach the next island in no time!"

Rose pauses when she hears this and mentally curses the next arc that they're going to hit. _*Shit, next one's Sky Island! There's no way I can land a hit on Eneru with my powers like this!*_

She starts flying up with the boys looking at her in confusion.

"What are you doing?" Chopper asks, so Rose stops to look down at them.

"I'm gonna work on my wind. I'll come down later." She flies above the ship to work on turning her limbs into air.

Robin follows the wind girl with her blue eyes and grins before she joins Nami to relax while the rest of the crew goes on with their daily activities.

* * *

An hour has passed, with Rose now lightly panting from using her wind so much. She points her arms ahead of her and tries to turn both of her arms into air again, but just like every time before only her right arm turned into air while her other arm only blasted wind out of her hand.

She sighs in frustration as she turns her right arm back to normal. She gazes down at her left arm and focuses on turning it into air. She starts to smile when it turns into air, but when she goes to turn her right arm into air as well it only blasts the wind out of her hand.

She groans at the lack of progress as she stops using her wind on her arms and ruffles her unruly bangs in frustration. "Dammit, this isn't working."

She looks down at her arms that she can only turn one into a wind bazooka at a time, and starts to wonder if she should focus on something else at the moment.

She lifts her right arm towards a cloud, that's the same width as the Merry, on her left and turns it into a strong gust. She furrowed her eyebrows in concentration as she works to manipulate it, so that instead of going straight the wind moves to whichever direction she chooses.

As her arm's wind shoots inside the cloud she tries to manipulate her wind to that it moves 90 degrees to her right from inside the cloud. She keeps trying but she doesn't see it shooting out of the cloud from her right, but instead it shoots out of the cloud from her left in the angle she wanted.

She widens her eyes at the misdirection and stops her wind. She flies to the left side of the cloud to see the circular hole that she made and covers her face with her hand. "Zoro's lack of direction is rubbing off on me..."

She chuckles at the new development as she takes her hand off her face and looks at the hole with gratitude that her wind at least did turn. She looks for another cloud to practice on then freezes when she sees an island on the horizon. She blinks at the new land and begins the countdown for when Luffy will yell for the crew to go there. "3, 2, 1."

"HEY GUYS, THERE'S AN ISLAND! LET'S GO!"

Rose chuckles at Luffy's yelling as she looks down to see the crew looking at the island and then moving the ship towards it.

She descends to the deck and helps the others get ready to dock onto the spring island with a large city built by the coastline.

While the ship begins to approach a hidden cove, that hides their ship from the public, Nami goes over to the captain and points to the island. "Listen Luffy, we're only stopping to resupply. We can't stay after sunset or the log pose will reset understand?"

Luffy quickly nods when he sees that the boat has docked and jumps off the ship to head to town.

"HEY, WAIT UP LUFFY!" Usopp yells as he, Chopper and Sanji run after their captain.

Nami sighs at Luffy's carefree attitude then sees Rose walking off the ship with her backpack in tow. "Wait a minute Rose!"

Rose stops and looks back in confusion to see Nami walking up to her. "Come with me and Robin, you both need some clothes."

She looks to see Robin joining them with her smile still plastered on her face then nods to Nami. "Sure, let's get going."

She follows Nami and Robin into town where they see a group of five marine officers patrolling the street with their backs to them. The girls quickly go into the clothing store next to them before they could be spotted.

Nami looks out the window and sighs in relief when she sees the marines walking away in a different direction. "Looks like we're ok, but the guys better not start anything."

"I'm sure we would've heard screaming by now if they did." Robin says as she looks at the assorted clothes on the shelves. "At least we made it. Let's take a look around."

Rose nods in agreement as she looks at the full sized mirror in front of the fitting room door to looks at her green long sleeved t-shirt and black jeans. She has never been one to worry about what she wore as long as it was affordable and comfy, but today she wants to try something different. Something that not only looks cool, but she'll able to fight in it without problems. She scans through the shelves and stops when she sees a long, blue, hooded jacket on a hanger.

She tries on the jacket that reaches the top of her knees and grins at the snug fit around her arms and small waist. She sees a pair of dark grey gloves and slips them on before she steps in front of the mirror to see how they look. Satisfied with the appearance, she heads to the counter where she sees Nami arguing with the old shop owner.

The red head scowls at the old man over her pile of clothes after she heard the expensive price of five million beli for ten outfits. "That price is outrageous! Drop it to ten percent of it!"

The dark skinned, skinny, man returns the scowl as he adjusts his glasses. "Now who's being outrageous? Complain all you want, but every store in this town's priced like this."

Robin, who's standing behind Nami, raises an eyebrow at this. "Why so expensive?"

The old man sadly sighs as he rests his elbows on the counter. "You saw those marines that were walking by here? Their commander taxes us so terribly high that if we can't pay them, then he'd take anything he wants from us instead."

He freezes when he remembers how the three of them ran into the store, then narrows his eyes at the girls. "By any chance, are you girls pirates?"

Nami tenses up at the intense stare while Robin and Rose get their guards up.

"If we are?" Rose asks as she clenches her fists while Robin has her arms ready to use her powers at any moment.

The old man however, loses his glare at the answer, and brightly smiles at them. "In that case, can you help me out?!"

The three of them look at him in confusion as he reaches into his pocket and takes out a photo of him as a young man, with a beautiful woman by his side. He points to the golden pocket watch that strapped onto his belt with a white snake holding a pair of tiny ruby eyes decorating the outside of it. "This pocket watch was a gift from my wife. Last week, the commander took it when I couldn't pay this month's million beli tax."

Rose widens her eyes at the tax as she looks at the pocket watch. "He gives you guys that much of a stupid tax a month?!"

Robin lowers her guard and looks at the photo in confusion. "What does the pocket watch have to do with us?"

"If you girls can sneak into the marine base at the edge of town and bring back the watch then you can consider the clothes on me."

Nami scowls at the deal before she puts the clothes back. "Thanks for the offer, but we're not interested. We'll just take our business elsewhere."

Nami and Robin leave the store, but Rose keeps her stare at the photo of the man staring at the woman beside him with pure admiration in his eyes.

Rose softly stares at the photo of a man, who treasured his wife, as she takes off the jacket and gloves. When she looks to see that her friends are out of earshot, she turns back to the owner with a mischievous smirk. "Please place these on hold for me."

The old man widens his eyes at the request, when he realizes that she's going to do it, before he grabs the jacket and gloves. "You got it!" He waves Rose off as she walks out to join the girls.

As they walk through the town square, Rose looks to her left to see the large marine fortress at the edge of town that's the tallest building in the city. She looks towards the girls and gives them a grin as she sets her plan to action. "Hey, since we have to leave by the end of the day, how about we split up to cover more ground?"

Nami and Robin stop and look back at Rose while they ponder the suggestion.

The navigator looks around the various stores and then at the clock tower at the center of the square to see that it's already one in the afternoon. "Alright, but just don't go too far. We still have a couple of hours before sunset."

Rose nods as she walks off in a direction, that's not at a direct angle towards the base, but heads close to it.

Robin watches where the wind girl's going before she wanders off in her own direction. "I'll see what I can find in this part of town. I'll see you soon Navigator-san."

Nami watches their newest crew member also go off on her own then sighs in defeat before she goes off in a different direction to find an affordable place to shop.

* * *

After reaching the marine base, Rose looks at the ten foot, white, wall that surrounds the fortress except for two large blue doors that are the only entrance to the base. She flies up to the edge of the wall and looks to see that the courtyard shows no sign of being guarded.

She hums in curiosity as she scans the area. "For a greedy marine it doesn't look like he guards his base well."

"There are probably guards inside."

Rose absentmindedly nods at the voice as she spots an open window at the second floor of the building. "Fair enough, but if we sneak in and time it right we can-"

She stops herself when she realizes that she's talking to someone and slowly looks to her left to see Robin right next to her with her arms holding her onto the edge. "Hello."

Rose yelps in shock at how she was hanging there the whole time and accidentally shoots up into the air.

Robin giggles at Rose's shock as she watches the wind girl regain control of her wind and floats next to her. "When did you get here?"

"Just after you flew up here. I'm surprised you didn't tell Navigator-san that you were doing this."

Rose sighs at the situation as she rubs the back of her head. "If I told her, she'd try to talk me out of it. What about you?"

"What about me?"

"You don't have to join me in this if you don't want to. I'm just gonna get the watch and get out."

Robin chuckles at how easy she makes stealing from a marine base sound before she looks at the base. "Then there shouldn't be any problems with me joining you on this crusade. I have a feeling that this will be pretty interesting."

Rose nods at she does one last scan of the area then creates a gust of wind for her crew mate to fly on. "Alright then, let's go in."

She leads them through the window that leads to an empty hallway. As soon as their feet touch the ground, they tread the halls to the first door they find. Once they reach the door, they see a pair of marine soldiers turning a corner, so they rush into the room.

Rose peeks through the crack in the doors to see that the marines didn't spot them and are walking past the door to get to their destination. She sighs in relief as she looks back to see that they ran into a windowless treasury.

Robin looks at the shelves that hold various kinds gold and silver trinkets that the commander confiscated from their owners. "My, this marine truly does love treasure."

Rose finds a trunk in the corner of the room and opens it in disbelief to find it full of every kind of jewelry imaginable. "No kidding, this looks more like a pirate's treasure room than a marine's treasury. The watch has to be in here."

Rose digs into the chest and pulls out handfuls of jewelry to place them on the floor to keep digging. Every time that she found a pocket watch in the large chest, she used her wind to allow it to float into the air for Robin to examine.

As five watches float in the air, Robin looks in disappointment to see that none of them hold the white snake symbol that's in the owner's photo. "These don't appear to be the one the owner had."

Rose grabs the last handful of necklaces and, in her dismay, looks to see that there are no more watches in the chest. "Shit, it's not in here."

Robin looks around to see that there are no other trunks in the room and the only clocks on the shelves are decorative ones. "He might have sold the watch off."

Rose softly frowns at the possibility as she gently places the watches back, then uses her wind to pick up the dropped jewelry. "It's definitely not here, that's for sure. Let's get out of here before someone comes in."

The archaeologist nods in agreement as she watches Rose bring the jewels to the chest when suddenly; the door opens to a buff marine soldier.

The pale marine widens his blue eyes at the sight of two intruders inside the treasure room with a large amount of the treasure floating in the air.

"What the fuck?!" He mutters under his breath as he gets his sword out and glares at the girls. "Drop the treasure and come quietly!"

Rose looks from him to the floating jewelry in shock of how this looks before she puts the jewels back in the box and tries to distract him. "Now take it easy. We can-"

She stops speaking when six arms grow on the man's body to put him in an uncomfortable hold that pulls his arms behind his back and has two of the hands cover his mouth. The man screams behind the hands as his upper body bends backwards until he passes out from the pain.

Rose sweat drops at Robin's attack as she watches Robin release her hold on the unconscious marine. "You're quick."

Robin chuckles at the compliment when five more marines approach their comrade's unconscious body in the hallway. "BRUCE, WHAT-?!"

The marine cuts himself off when Rose uses her wind to send them flying and slam them to the wall before the two pirates make a run for it.

Robin giggles at the wind slam that Rose used on them as she looks back to see that the wind has subsided. "You're not so slow yourself."

"I can't let you have all the fun." Rose says when she looks over her shoulder to see that four of the marines are going after them.

She turns around while she turns her right arm into wind to send them flying while sending herself flying backwards to the end of the hall where there's a fork in the road. She manages to catch herself before she could hit the wall, but widens her eyes when she looks to her right to see more marines coming at them. "Crap!"

She blasts wind out of her arm to hold them back while she creates a wind for herself and for Robin just when she reached her, and started flying in the opposite directions with at least twenty marines in pursuit.

All the while one of the marines stayed behind in the communication room. "I can't believe this is happening with an inspector from HQ coming..."

He activates a den den mushi and alerts the rest of the base of the two intruders and to stop at nothing to capture them.

* * *

At a local restaurant in town Luffy, Sanji, Usopp, and Chopper are enjoying their meal. Luffy eats five dishes of meat while he grabs a few pieces of the others' dishes.

Chopper tries to block a piece of his food with a fork, but Luffy managed to grab the food before he could hit him. "Quit stealing my food Luffy!"

"I Cansh't Helpth itsh" Luffy tries to say that he 'can't help it' with his mouth full before he swallows and continues his meal.

Sanji sweat drops at his captain's antics as he swallows his food. "I'll never understand how you can eat that much."

"Don't ask me." Usopp says after he quickly slips some hot sauce on a piece of his food just before Luffy grabs it.

Once the captain chomped on the piece of food, he started breathing fire and chugged not only his glass of water but everyone else's on the table.

As the three boys laugh at their captain's plight, Sanji stops when he sees Nami walking into the restaurant without a single shopping bag in her hands.

"Nami-swan, over here!" Sanji calls out with hearts in his eyes as he wildly waves his arms to get her attention.

Nami immediately notices them and joins them by grabbing an empty chair along the way, and sits down next to Usopp and Chopper. "Hey guys, how's the food?"

"Too hot." Luffy says after he finishes the drink and settles down.

"Did you find anything interesting Nami?" Usopp asks but she only sighs in disappointment.

"These stores won't know a good discount if it bit them in the butt. I doubt Robin or Rose found anything better."

The boys look at her in confusion when a pair of marines walk into the restaurant.

One is a large, muscular, man, with a jet black small beard on his lightly tan face. The color of his beard matches his hair, that reaches his shoulders where his commander jacket is pinned to his uniform. The other is a curvy woman, with her long light red hair tied into a ponytail, and her twin pistols tied to her belt.

The civilians, along with Usopp and Chopper, flinch at the sight of the commander and his subordinate walking into the restaurant.

Luffy keeps eating while Nami and Sanji keep their eyes on the two marines as they walk up to the manager at the counter.

The middle aged man looks at them nervously as he fakes a smile for the officers. "W-welcome Commander West. Would you and Tanya like a table?"

West smirks at the offer as he lifts his sunglasses. "Forget that, you know why we're here."

The manager slowly nods as he takes an envelope from his pocket that holds a large stack of beli inside.

Tanya takes the envelope and counts it off before she turns to her superior. "It's still ten thousand short."

The manager widens his eyes at the accusation behind his glasses. "That can't be right, that's the same amount as last month!"

West snickers at the claim. "You must've missed the announcement that it was raised."

The manager looks at him in shock. "That's all I have for this month! I can't afford more!"

Tanya sighs in fake disappointment as she looks around. "Well, that's a shame. I guess we'll just have to take some collateral."

The civilians keep their heads down as the marines looks around the decor of the restaurant. The pirates also remain silent as they watch them walking around.

Nami doesn't take her eyes off the commander, that she heard about, then widens her eyes when she sees that on his belt holds a golden pocket watch. When she saw the white snake symbol decorating the front of it with two tiny rubies used as the eyes, she knew that it was the clothing shop owner's watch.

The commander doesn't notice the attention as he spots a painting of the beach overlooking the sunset hanging on the wall in a thin black frame. "This will do perfectly for my office."

The manager widens his eyes at the portrait as he and Tanya start taking it down. "No please you-!"

The marines stop themselves when West's baby den den mushi starts ringing from his pocket. West leaves the painting alone to grab the small orange snail from his pocket and answers it. "What's going on?"

The snail starts crying fearfully as a male voice calls out to him. "Commander, we have a problem! Two women have invaded the base!"

Tanya raises an eyebrow at the declaration. "You're saying that the base can't handle two girls?"

"They're not ordinary girls ma'am, they're devil fruit users! One of them can sprout hands on people and the other can turn her arm into air!"

The pirates widen their eyes at what they overheard before Luffy and Sanji get up and run out of the restaurant.

"Guys, w-!" Usopp quickly shuts up when he, Nami and Chopper cover his mouth while Tanya looks over at them for a second, then sees the other customers staring at her.

"What are you all looking at?!" The customers fearfully look away from the intimidating marine as she returns her attention to the conversation.

West glares at the snail as he gives him the order. "Do whatever you can to capture them! We'll be right there to execute them! If they escape with a single piece of treasure then it's on you!"

He hangs up his end of the line before he stuffs the snail in his pocket. "Let's go Tanya."

Tanya nods in agreement as they take their leave. As they run past the crew, they don't pay attention to Nami's focus on them as they get out of the restaurant with one less watch on them.

Nami looks down at the pocket watch she managed to pickpocket from the marine while Usopp looks at them in shock. "Are Rose and Robin seriously there?!"

"That has to be them! Who else can-?!" Chopper stops himself when he sees a murderous aura coming from Nami.

The navigator puts the watch in her pocket while she stands up. "Those two couldn't stay out of trouble on their first island in the crew?!"

Usopp nervously gulps before he grabs his glass and plays it off like it's no big thing. "I-I'm sure they're fine. Robin and Rose are strong, and Luffy and Sanji are going to back them up. They don't need any- Whoa!"

Nami grabs Usopp and Chopper's wrists and drags them out. "You're coming too!"

"But I have the 'don't go to a marine base or I'll die' disease!" Usopp says while Chopper nods.

"Yea, I got it too!" Chopper says, but Nami won't have it as she takes them out of the restaurant, and ignores the customers and manager who are staring at them.

The manager blinks at the craziness that happened, and while he's grateful that he didn't lose the painting, he realizes he was still at a loss here. "I've been dine and dashed..."

* * *

Rose and Robin continue flying through the halls with at least ten marines on their tails. Robin crosses her arms over her chest to put them in a hold.

The marines can only cry out in pain as they fall to their knees, and watch their targets fly off. Rose looks ahead to see that there's a closed window in up ahead to their left where an intersection is. She turns her arm into wind and blasts it ahead to try breaking the window before they reach it by making it turn left. However, instead of turning left, the wind turns right where a crowd of marines were about to run in and sends them flying.

Rose blinks at misdirection, but decides to accept the victory as they fly past the intersection and turn at the next corner. Once the marines recover, from the girls' attacks they follow them around the corner to find they disappeared.

"Find them!" The marines quickly open every door to look inside before they run into the next room.

As one of them opens the door to the commander's office, he couldn't see anyone inside so he shuts the door where Rose and Robin are hiding behind.

Rose chuckles at how they were able to evade them by hiding behind the door. "Works every time."

Robin giggles at her pride in their escape as she goes to the large window at the end of the room. Once she sees that the window's locked she rummages through the drawers to search for the key.

Meanwhile, Rose looks around the walls that are covered by all kinds of paintings and two large shelves. One shelf holding more decorations that didn't look as valuable as the ones in the treasure, and the other holding eternal poses to various places from marine bases to tropical paradises.

The brunette wastes no time in going up to the shelf holding the poses, and looks through the top portions of the hourglass like compasses where the labels are, so she can see which islands they lead to.

"See something interesting?" Rose snaps out of it when she looks to see Robin staring at her.

Her purple eyes go from her to the shelf before she picks a few of the eternal poses up. "I'm just impressed with this guy's eternal pose collection. Nami might like them for her navigation or she could sell them off."

Robin raises an eyebrow at the explanation, when she sees Rose taking her backpack off to place the eternal poses inside, then she goes back to searching for the key. As Robin digs through the drawers she stops when she finds a stack of wanted posters in the drawer.

Robin grabs them and looks through them to see if there were any changes to her poster, but instead she finds a poster for her new crew mate.

After the astronomer places ten eternal poses that lead to different locations in her bag, she stops to see Robin staring at the posters. "What are you looking at?"

"Your wanted poster." Robin says as she looks it over with no changes in her calm facial expression.

Rose nearly drops her bag before she looks at her with eyes as wide as plates. "My what now?!"

Robin shows her the poster with her first name typed below the photo in big black letters.

Rose quickly grabs the poster that holds an accurately drawn photo of herself smirking and looks at the bounty below her name. "How the hell did I get a 17 million bounty?!"

Robin raises an eyebrow at her surprise. "You should expect this since you're a pirate."

"Yea, but I haven't been a pirate for even a week yet!" She keeps looking at the poster of herself as she tries to make sense of the bounty. _*Cassim promised that he wouldn't rat me out to the government, did Amir do this?! Wait, if they knew about my research then wouldn't my bounty be closer to Robin's?*_

The astronomer looks at her epitaph on the lower left and sees that they gave her the title 'Wind Rider Rose'. She chuckles at the name that she can only get if they didn't know about her research, and starts calming down. She folds up the paper to put it in her pocket before she puts on her backpack. "I must've got this because of my devil fruit. Either way, this is pretty sweet. We should get out of here before the crew shows up."

The archaeologist silently agrees as she looks down at the open drawer and finds a small golden key inside. She goes to open the window, but she stops when she looks outside. "Looks like they're already here."

Rose goes up to the window with wide eyes to see Luffy and Sanji fighting at least sixty marines in the front courtyard with more running out the door by the minute. "How the crap did they find out we were here?!"

Robin ignores the question as she tries to unlock the window, but the key doesn't fit.

Rose takes a few steps back and starts turning her arm into wind. "Stand back, I'll break it open."

Robin moves away from the window, and just when Rose was about to blast her wind onto the glass window, seven marines barge into the room with rifles in hand.

The men aim their guns at them while the one in the middle smirks. "You bitches have nowhere to run. Just give up."

Rose chuckles at the command as she turns her attention back to the window. "I don't think so, what do you think Robin?"

"I agree." Robin uses her abilities to sprout arms onto the wall right next to the tall shelves in order to push the top half of the furniture off the wall to fall onto five of the soldiers.

The soldiers ignore the falling contents as they struggle to keep the heavy shelf from collapsing on top of them. Meanwhile, Rose turns her arm into a strong gust of wind and breaks the thin glass window. Once she makes the hole large enough for a person to go through, she flies out with Robin just when the marines get the shelves off them.

Before they can start shooting at them Rose uses her wind to lift the desk and send it flying at them to knock them down.

Rose chuckles at the attack, but she quickly stops her smile when she sees that marines from the windows of other rooms have aimed their guns at them. "Crap!"

She maneuvers her wind so that she and Robin dodge the incoming bullets as they start descending. Robin uses her arms to put the remaining soldiers at the windows in a clutch to knock them out. Meanwhile, Rose blasts wind out of her arms to slam the marines under them onto the ground.

Sanji looks up with a large smile on his face as his eyes turn into hearts. "Rose-chwan! Robin-chwan! Don't worry; I'm here to rescue you! Are you two hurt?"

"We're fine cook-san, but thank you." Robin says as she puts a few of the men on the ground in a clutch while Rose keeps them flying just a few feet in the air before she joins the brawl.

Luffy punches out a marine then grins at them. "Why didn't you tell us you were here?!"

"Cause we're getting out of here." Rose says as she reverse hook kicks a marine in the face. She starts creating some wind to get the guys flying, when she hears a loud pistol shoot into the sky.

Rose accidentally loses her concentration and lands on her feet, along with Robin, as they look to see that Tanya made the shot by the front gate with West standing beside her.

The pirates look around to see that they're still surrounded by twenty marines, who are looking at their superior officers in horror as they approach them.

West raises an eyebrow at the four pirates, who have been causing this base so much trouble, then glares at the closest marine that's conscious. "These are the intruders?! You gotta be kidding me!"

The soldier flinches at the scolding tone in his voice. "But sir, most of them are devil fruit users!"

Tanya rolls her eyes at the excuse. "Please, if these weaklings were so dangerous, they would've killed you all by the time we got here."

"What was that?" Rose says as she twitches an eyebrow at the insult.

Tanya smirks at the her rage as she keeps taunting her. "You heard me. I bet you're the one that can shoot wind out of your arms. Is that all you can do?"

Rose furrows her eyebrows at the question. "I'd like to see you try learning how to use a devil fruit! It's not like I can just snap my fingers-"

She snaps her fingers on her right hand to prove a point and keeps ranting. "And win a fight!"

Tanya chuckles at her anger, as she aims her pistol at her. "Well, I'll make it easier for you by-"

She stops herself when she sees that the snap Rose made created a tiny tornado that's starting to grow.

The pirates look at the startled woman in confusion as she watches the tornado grow a few feet in height so she, West, and the other marines quickly step away in fear.

The pirates, except for Rose, see the tornado that's moving away from them and towards the base in shock.

When Rose sees their surprised expressions, she looks at them with a blank expression on her face as she refuses to look towards the base. "I just snapped up a tornado didn't I?"

The group slowly nods, so he turns around and drops her jaw at the tornado that's now grown ten feet tall.

"Holy shit!" Rose quickly gets herself and the crew flying, before the tornado could be strong enough to pull them in, and starts flying away from the base.

"HOLD IT!" Tanya and West aim their guns at them, but before they can pull the trigger the force for the tornado pulled them into the storm.

As Rose and the others fly over the wall, they look to see Nami, Usopp and Chopper looking up at the tall tornado, that's sending the marines flying and destroying the windows, in shock.

When Nami sees the group, she calls out to Rose. "YOU FREAKING INVADED A BASE AND MADE A TORNADO?!"

"I DIDN'T PLAN ON THE TORNADO! IT WAS AN ACCIDENT!" Rose calls out as she sets Robin, Sanji and Luffy on the ground, but she stays flying as she looks back at the tornado.

She groans in frustration when she sees it not dying down any time soon. "I can't leave it like this! How do I turn it off?!"

"You don't know how to stop it?!" Usopp and Chopper ask in fright.

"That's why I said it was an accident!" Rose says as she stares at the tornado while she tries to come up with a way to stop it.

Luffy tilts his head at the sight. "Why don't you stop it with another tornado?"

"We don't need two tornadoes Luffy!" Sanji says, but Rose widens her eyes at the idea.

"Wait, that's exactly what we need!" The group couldn't believe what they're hearing as they watch her land on the wall, and snap the fingers on her left hand to create a tornado that's rotating in the opposite direction of the first one.

"Are you insane?!" Nami asks as she watches Rose blasts wind out of her hands to help it grow.

"That's debatable!" Rose says as she continues to help her new tornado grow to the same size as the first one while she pushes it towards the base.

The crew widens their eyes at the tornado when they see it collapse with the first one and destroys it while the second fades away. When the marines fall from the cyclone, Rose catches them with a gust before she drops them just a foot above the ground, then she joins the others on the ground, and makes a run for it. "Let's get out of here!"

The others didn't have to be told twice as they make a run for it.

Luffy looks back at the broken windows and small hole in the roof with stars in his eyes. "That was awesome!"

Rose chuckles at his enthusiasm. "You got that right, but this one will need more practice too."

"Just don't practice that on the ship. I'm not sure Merry could take it." Usopp says causing her to nod in agreement.

Chopper looks from the damage to Rose in confusion. "How did making another tornado stop it?"

Robin smiles at his the reindeer before she explains it. "When she snapped the first tornado she made it with her right hand. When she made the second one she used her left one, so it rotated in the opposite direction. When the opposite sides collided at the same size, they cancelled each other out."

Nami blinks at the explanation before she scowls at her and Rose. "What the hell were you two thinking raiding a base all by yourselves?!"

"I was just along for the ride." Robin says without any fear of Nami's scolding tone.

Rose quietly sighs in disappointment of going through all that trouble for nothing. "Sorry, I was trying to get the watch for the clothing shop guy, but it wasn't in the treasure room."

"That's because it was on the commander's belt." Nami says as she shows them the pocket watch she stole from the marine in the restaurant.

Robin grins at the watch. "I'm impressed; with the damage Wind-chan made it should be a while before the marines recover, so we should hurry."

Rose blinks at the nickname that Robin gave her. _*Wind-chan? Well, I never told her I was an astronomer, so this works.*_

She shrugs off the name while Nami turns to the guys. "You guys get the sails ready. Once we drop off the watch and make it to the ship, we're leaving."

"Yes Nami-swan!" Sanji says as he runs ahead.

"Just don't waste too much time!" Usopp says as he, Luffy and Chopper follow Sanji to the direction of the ship.

The girls didn't need to be told twice as they head back to the clothing shop to exchange the watch for the clothes.

Meanwhile, back at the base West and Tanya were slowly standing up from their fall as they assess the damages. They grew more furious by the second as they find marine doctors rushing to the unconscious marines who are lying down at every place they look, a hole in the edge of the roof, and almost every window shattered.

"I will give those pirates a slow and painful death." West says as he and Tanya turn to leave, but they freeze when they see another marine with high ranking at the gate with two subordinates at his side.

The grayish man, with his thinning dark hair in a ponytail, and a marine overcoat over his purple clothes scowls at the pair as he walks into the courtyard and scans the mess behind his purple sunglasses. "What's the meaning of this mess Commander West? Did you forget about your inspection today?"

West cringes when he remembers that his base's inspection is today. "W-we can explain Inspector Shepherd. You see, there was this pirate crew that invaded the base."

Shepherd widens his eyes at the explanation. "And did you capture them?"

West looks at him nervously as he shifts his eyes to the right. "W-well, not exactly but-"

"You mean to tell me that you couldn't handle one crew?! Your base looks like it was hit by a tornado!"

Tanya awkwardly chuckles at the accurate assessment. "W-well, that's not too far from the truth actually. You see, we were hit by an actual tornado about ten minutes ago."

Shepherd raises an eyebrow at the explanation. "Your commander just told me that you were attacked by pirates, and now you're saying that it was a tornado? Well, which is it?!"

"It was both." West says, which makes the inspector narrow his eyes at them.

The inspector takes a deep breath before he pinches the bridge of his nose. "Let me get this straight. You're telling me that your base was not only invaded by pirates, but it was also hit by a tornado that came in just before I arrived?"

Tanya narrows her eyes at the officer as she tries to recover her standing in the argument. "One of the pirates made the tornado! There was nothing we could do to-!"

"So now you're saying that you were too weak to handle this?! I heard enough! I'm reporting this to Headquarters right now! I wouldn't be surprised if you both get demoted for this mess!"

The two marines can only stare at the inspector in despair as he left with his subordinates to report his findings that will not only ruin their careers, but also their reputation.

* * *

At the clothing store, the girls don't waste any time in grabbing the clothes they looked at earlier.

Once Rose puts on her new jacket and gloves, she sees the owner holding the pocket watch as if it's the One Piece itself. She grins at the sentimental man before she walks up to him and grabs one of the eternal poses from her bag to place it on the counter. "Here."

The owner picks up the eternal pose that leads to an island called Valor Island and looks at it in confusion. "What's this for?"

"Just in case you want out of this island." Rose says, but he shakes his head as he hands it back to her.

"Thank you, but no. My wife's grave is here and I can't part from it."

Rose softly grins at the explanation before she hands it back to him. "I understand, in that case keep it in case the commander tries to take something from you again. I'm sure he'd want an eternal pose more than a watch."

The owner nods with a smile as he takes the pose from her and bows his head to the girls. "Thank you, all of you. I really appreciate all of this."

Nami grins at the appreciation as she grabs her five shopping bags, holding various kinds of outfits, in her arms. "Don't worry about it. Thanks for the clothes."

She walks out with Robin following her, holding two shopping bags of her own, and Rose holding a pair of bags for her new clothes as well.

Nami thinks back on the eternal pose Rose gave the man and looks back at her in confusion. "You didn't steal the treasure but you stole eternal poses?"

Rose shrugs at the question. "They're more useful than treasure in my book. If you don't want them, I can keep them."

Nami blinks at the offer before she shakes her head. "No, I'll take them off your hands."

Rose grins at the agreement when they reach the ship and climb aboard. Once everyone's on the ship, they sail away from the island without looking back.

When the girls go into the girls' room to put the clothes away, Rose places eight of the eternal poses that she took from the base onto Nami's desk. "I randomly took these, so they might lead to marine bases. If anything, we can always sell them."

Nami blinks at the eternal poses that are labeled with titles, that are hardly able to tell them the difference between a marine base and a regular island. "Don't worry about it, we'll find some use for them."

Nami looks to see Robin unpacking before she points to Vivi's old bed. "You can use this bed."

Robin nods in acknowledgement as she puts her clothes away and heads out the door. "Thank you very much. I'm going to head out."

After Nami watches Robin leave, she quietly sighs before she turns to Rose. "I don't know about you, but one of Sanji's drinks sounds good right now. You want one while I'm up there?"

Rose shakes her head. "I'm good; I'll join you guys up there once I've put my clothes away."

Nami nods as she heads out the door while Rose puts her new clothes away.

Once Rose is alone in the room, she takes her wanted poster out of her pocket, and chuckles at her first bounty as she scans over the paper. She looks over her name again, and can't stop wondering about the fact that her last name is nowhere to be found on the poster. _*It makes sense since I only told the crew that my family name's Catone. If the World Government ever does discover my research, then they could try to connect me to the researchers that disappeared that night. If they put one of the researchers' last names on my poster when that happens then...*_

She shakes her head of the thought as she decides to not worry about that possibility until it happens. She goes into her bag to put the poster away when she sees the eternal pose that she kept from Nami in her bag.

She lifts the pose up to the edge of her bag to get a closer look at it, and sees that the label on the top piece of the device confirms that this eternal pose will lead her to Marineford. _*I hope to god that I'll never have to use this...*_

She puts the pose back in her bag and slings it onto her shoulder, before she takes one of her astronomy books. As she leaves the room, she fails to notice the blue eye that's watching her from the wall and vanishes into a few pink flower petals.

Robin stays seated in her lounge chair on the deck as she opens her eyes, and tries to process what she just saw in the girls' room from the eye she planted there. When she first met Rose, she only thought of her as a reckless child with an interesting devil fruit.

However, after watching her in action at the base she sees now that there's more to her than that. When she watched Rose gaze at the eternal poses in the office, she knew she was looking for a specific one, but took more so that it wouldn't look suspicious. While she couldn't see which destination the eternal pose Rose kept leads from where her eye was watching her, she knows now that Rose is hiding some secret motives from the others.

The archaeologist looks to the door to the lower deck to see Rose walking outside. Rose doesn't notice the attention as she sits cross legged on the deck with her back to the mast and starts reading her book.

After a moment of Robin watching her acting as if nothing's out of the ordinary, she gets up and goes to her new room. As she lies down in her bed only one thing clouds her mind: while most of the crew will be keeping an eye on her, she's going to be the one to keep her guard up against the wind girl.

TO BE CONTINUED

* * *

 **A/N: Hey everyone, I hope you enjoyed this new chapter. There's something I want to talk to you all about. As I've told you I'm interested in working with having the story interact with the One Piece movies. I have received arguments from people who want the movies in the main story and from those to create it as a side series like I've done with my other specials.**

 **In order to make things fair I've decided to put it down to a vote from you since you'll be the ones who will see it. If you guys would like to either place the movies into the main story or as a side story please let me know through PRIVATE MESSAGE! It's a lot easier to keep track through the messages.**

 **I believe that's it on the announcements. I'll give you all the votes' verdict in the next chapter. See you later!**


	25. Chapter 25

Three days have passed for the crew since Robin's recruitment, and the journey has been for once a peaceful one. While some crew members are still suspicious of Robin, she managed to blend herself into the crew rather nicely and can read almost everyone now. She's managed to join in the crew's daily activities well by taking the lounge chair next to Nami's and reading a book.

When she turns the page, she looks up to see Rose sitting on the deck with her back to the mast, on the opposite side of where the sleeping swordsman lies, and reading her own book.

Ever since Robin discovered that Rose kept an eternal pose for herself, without telling the others, she's kept an eye on her to see if anything else was amiss, but so far, she hasn't come up with a lot. Rose never brought out the eternal pose again since that day, and allows Nami to guide them through the Grand Line with her log pose without giving any suggestions of going elsewhere. The wind girl always keeps her bag by her side, and even uses it as a pillow when she sleeps, so Robin can't look to see where the eternal pose leads, but it doesn't look like she has any desire to use it.

Even so, there's something about the brunette that she can't place her finger on. Rose does get along well with the others, but Robin can tell that she tends to keep to herself more than anyone else in the crew. Like right now, even though there's an empty chair with her and Nami, Rose stays on her spot by the mast with no signs of wanting to join them. However, whenever any of her crew mates need help with something, no matter what Rose's doing, she'd drop everything to help and then when she's done she puts herself back at a distance.

While Robin can't say that it's suspicious, she plans to keep an eye on Rose for another day to make sure that there's nothing to worry about.

Robin goes back into her book while Luffy, Usopp and Chopper continue to fish on the railing with their backs to the ship.

Chopper sighs in disappointment as he doesn't get a bite from his fishing rod. "Why can't we catch anything?"

Usopp tilts his head down to the water and reels his line in to find not even his bait on the hook anymore. "Maybe this area's the problem. Let's try on the other side of the ship."

Chopper and Luffy silently agree as they get off the railing with Usopp and head to the opposite side of the deck.

Rose takes a break from her book, and looks up to see that they're heading to the opposite side of the ship. She looks to the railing to see that they're fishing, something that she's never done before, so she scoots alongside the mast to learn more about the sport.

As the trio settles in their new seat on the railing, Luffy looks over his shoulder to see Rose looking down at her book as if she wasn't watching them. "Hey Rose, come fish with us."

The wind girl snaps out of her book, as if she's been reading all along, and looks at her captain with a small smile. "Sorry, I can't."

"How come?"

She scratches the back of her head nervously. "Well, I never fished before, so I won't be much help on your side of it. When you guys send the fish flying over the railing, then I'll catch them for you."

Usopp widens his eyes at the explanation before he scowls at her. "That's unacceptable!"

Rose raises an eyebrow in confusion before Usopp starts ranting. "If you're gonna help then you need to know every fishing step you need to take! I'll be right back!"

He gets off the railing and runs inside before he runs out with a second rod in his hand. Once he reaches Rose, he stops and hands her the new rod. "Ready to learn how to fish?"

Rose blinks at the invitation to learn before she nods and gets up. "Sure, let's do it."

She and Usopp walk past the sleeping swordsman, who's laying by the mast, as the four pirates get ready to start fishing.

Usopp smirks in pride as he grabs the open can of worms that's sitting and starts hooking his bait. "Now that I'm in a teaching mood, how about I teach you guys my secret cast?"

Luffy and Chopper look at him with wide eyes before they eagerly nod. "Yea, come on!"

Usopp grins at the excitement before he passes Rose the can of worms. "Ok, first you all need to hook your bait onto the hook."

Rose grabs the can, as she shows no fear for touching the slimy creature with her gloved hands, as she grabs a fat worm from the can. She hands Chopper, who's sitting right next to her, the can before she stabs the worm onto the hook until it's deep enough so that the point and barb of the hook weren't covered.

Once all their hooks hold some bait, Usopp puts his finger on top of the clip that's holding the spool of fishing line. "Now you have to get ready to release the line as you pull it back and then cast it out as far away from the boat as possible."

He pulls his rod back and, just before he casts it, he pulls the clip to release the line to cast it into the ocean.

Luffy, Chopper and Rose grin in excitement as the line flies about ten feet from the ship. Usopp grins at the long cast before he turns to the others. "Then the fish handle the rest. You guys give it a shot now."

Luffy nods as he casts his line out with no problems as it flies out at twice the distance that Usopp casted out.

Chopper goes into heavy point just when he and Rose find the clip to their poles. The two pirates pull back at the same time, but accidentally pull the clips too early to send their hooks flying backwards. When they pulled forward to cast their lines, they both freeze in shock when they hear something behind them rip. When their lines flew over them all four pirates look up in shock to see a white t-shirt caught in the two hooks, and land in the sea just a few feet away from them.

Chopper transforms back into brain point, when he looks down at the ripped up short sleeve shirt, and begins to get scared. "Umm guys, does that shirt belong to the person I think it does?"

Usopp and Luffy nervously nod as Rose looks back to see a shirtless Zoro waking up from his nap.

When he looks down to see the scar on his toned chest, instead of his shirt, he widens his eyes in shock. "What the hell happened to my shirt?!"

Rose quickly looks back to the ocean, in order to avoid suspicion, along with the rest of the boys.

Zoro looks at the fishermen in confusion. "Hey guys, do you know what happened to my shirt?"

The four of them only shake their heads as they keep their eyes on the water. Zoro raises an eyebrow at their nervousness when Rose and Chopper's lines start getting pulled.

"Oh crap, we caught something?!" Rose asks as she holds onto the rod with both hands, to make sure that she doesn't drop the rod, while Chopper goes into heavy point and starts reeling.

Luffy gets off the railing, and hands Zoro his fishing rod before he grabs a net for the fish.

Usopp sees that Rose isn't reeling the rod yet as she's fighting to keep the rod in her hands and points to the reel. "You gotta pull the handle and reel the line in!"

Rose looks at the reel and starts winding it up with her left hand as quickly as possible, but when the fish starts fighting back, it starts pulling Rose and Chopper towards the edge.

However, before either of them can go overboard Zoro and Luffy grab onto Chopper and Rose respectively and pull them back.

Usopp grabs the net from Luffy's hands as he drops his rod onto the deck and gets behind them. "Hurry up and reel it in before it gets away!"

"R-right!" Rose says with a heavy blush decorating her cheeks from Luffy's embrace. She does her best to reel it in while she tries to ignore Luffy's right arm around her waist and his other hand is over hers to help her reel it in.

Nami and Robin turn their attention to the noise and look to see them gathered together to reel in a fish. What surprised Robin though, was seeing Rose's face heat up from being held by Luffy as the group finally manages to pull up a yellow, two headed, fish that has one head on each hook.

Chopper yelps in shock at the squirming fish that's half the size of them as they pull it over the railing and into the net.

Usopp screams when the fish almost bites him, but he flips the net upside down so the fish can't escape and grabs his mallet from his satchel. "Usopp hammer!"

Rose holds herself back from laughing as she and others watch Usopp whack both heads with the hammer. He had to whack it at least ten times before the fish passed out with a group of lumps forming on the heads.

Luffy grins at the fish in excitement as he lets go of Rose and runs up to the catch. "This fish is huge!"

Rose recovers from the embrace and kneels in front to the sea creature to get the hooks out of their mouths. "That was pretty fun. Can we do it again?"

The others nod in agreement except for Zoro, who's noticing a piece of white fabric at the corner of the left head's mouth. "What's this?"

The four pirates stiffen up as Zoro opens the mouth and pulls out the fabric until a small, slimy, wad of Zoro's shirt comes out. The swordsman twitches an eyebrow at the remains of his shirt before he drops it and glares at the fishermen. "You used my shirt as bait?!"

The four of them nervously gulp under his glare as they step away from him.

Chopper runs behind the group to hide with most of his body visible. "I-it was an accident."

Rose quickly nods in agreement as she gives him a nervous smile. "T-that's right! It's my first time fishing, and I tried to do it the way Usopp showed me, but I hooked your shirt."

Luffy nods when he looks at the tasty fish with a large smile. "Your shirt makes a great bait though. Can we use another one?"

Usopp, Rose, and Chopper look at the captain in disbelief of the poorly timed request when they hear the sound of a sword unsheathing.

Once the four of them see Zoro with a sword in his hand, they waste no time in making a run for it.

"We're sorry!" Usopp calls out as he runs away and ducks to dodge the back of the blade from hitting his head.

"Sorry won't cut it!" Zoro says as he runs after them while he swings the back of the sword at them, but they continue to narrowly dodge it every time.

Nami sweat drops at the chase before she gets back to her magazine. "They're all hopeless…"

Robin giggles at the chase when she sees the four of them running around all over the deck to avoid the swordsman's wrath. When she sees Rose running around she remembers how she blushed in Luffy's arms, so she turns to Nami for some answers. "What's the story between Wind-chan and Captain-san?"

Nami blinks at the question, when she remembers seeing Rose blush when Luffy hugged her again, and sighs in disappointment. "Not much of a story to be honest. I'm sure that they have feelings for each other, but either they're too oblivious, denying it, or both…"

She looks to see the four fishermen still running until Rose finally remembers that she can fly, so she uses her wind to lift herself and the guys away from the furious swordsman.

Zoro growls in irritation as he watches Rose fly the four of them out of his reach, but he doesn't pursue them as he sheathes his blade and goes inside to get a new shirt.

Nami looks up at the group to see them relaxing now that their pursuer has given up. She sees Rose and Luffy talking to one another, and can't help but wonder what to do about them. Now that Rose joined the crew Nami thought that something would happen between them, but they only acted like buddies. At this rate, she worries that nothing will happen, so she feels that it's time to take matters into her own hands.

Once the group landed on the deck, Nami called out to them. "Rose, Luffy, come here!"

The pair immediately tense up at the order, thinking that she's mad about the chase, but nonetheless go to her while Usopp and Chopper bring the fish to the kitchen for Sanji to cook.

Once Rose and Luffy make it to Nami, the navigator keeps a sweet smile on her face as she puts the magazine down. "Now that we have more crew members on board I'm thinking of setting up a new night watch system."

Luffy calms down from her smile, but Rose is still wary of what Nami's planning. "What kind of system exactly?"

Nami keeps up her innocent grin before she points up to the crow's nest. "I'm thinking that from now on we can have our night watch done in pairs. For tonight, I want you both to try it out and see if it works."

Rose looks up at the crow's nest curiously, but before she can say anything Luffy speaks up with a grin. "Sure, we'll do it."

Rose blinks at the answer, but she can't see anything wrong with the idea, so she nods in agreement. "Yea alright, it can't hurt to try it out."

Nami's grin grows from the victory as she gives them a thumbs up. "Perfect, tell me how it works tomorrow and then I'll see if we can make it a regular thing."

The pair nods in agreement when Usopp and Chopper come back outside, so they go off to get back to fishing with them.

Robin chuckles at Nami's plan to get them alone as she goes back to her book. "You think this would work?"

Nami casually shrugs as she grabs her magazine and relaxes in her chair. "I'm sure something will come out of it. At the very least, I can see if we really can make this new system work."

Robin nods in agreement as she and the rest of the crew go back to their daily activities for the rest of the day.

* * *

Once dinner was finished, the crew relaxes outside where the sun has begun to set, except for Rose who decided to take a nap up on the crow's nest before it was time for night watch.

Luffy however, continues to play tag with Usopp and Chopper as the sun finishes setting.

Nami walks to the door to go inside when she sees Luffy still playing, so she calls out to him. "Luffy, it's time for night watch! Go join Rose up on the crow's nest!"

Luffy immediately stops playing when he hears the order, and looks up to see the stars and the moon starting to come out. He sighs in disappointment of not being able to play anymore, but nonetheless goes up the rope ladder to start his night watch.

Once he reaches the crow's nest, he's met with the freckled girl curled up at the other side of the crow's nest. With the help of the candle lit lamp on the bench next to her, he can see that she's fast asleep on her side facing him, with her green blanket wrapped around her, and her backpack as a pillow.

Luffy blinks at the sight as he swings his legs over the edge and sits cross legged across from Rose. With a closer look, he can see that she's scowling from a bad dream, and clenching her blanket to keep herself warm.

He reaches over to shake her awake, but he stops when he sees something shine right in front of her face. He looks curiously to see that it's the red and black crystal necklace that Rose always keeps on her with the gem laying face up in front of her, and the silver chain hanging loosely around her neck.

His curiosity got the better of him as he goes to grab the crystal to get a closer look at the two colored gem, just when a pair of purple eyes begin to slowly open.

Still groggy from her sleep, and with the first thing she sees is a hand about to touch her necklace, Rose grabs his wrist and pounces on the hand's owner without thinking.

Luffy widens his eyes to Rose's actions as her knees straddle his waist to pin him on his back. She keeps her grip on his wrist to pin it next to his head with her other hand holding down his other arm while she growls at him. "Never touch my-!"

She stops talking when she's awake enough to realize that she's not talking to one of her foster sisters, like she was in her dream, but to her captain who's just staring at her in shock. She looks down to at the suggestive position she has him in, which causes a blush to erupt on her freckled cheeks as she releases his arms.

Rose quickly scrambles off him with her blush still strong on her pale face as she rushes to the opposite side of the crow's nest. "I'm so sorry!"

Luffy blinks at her quick retreat as he sits back up while re-adjusting his hat back onto his head. "It's fine, but are you ok?"

Rose nods as her blush starts fading away, while she looks down with guilt, and scratches the back of her head. "Yea, I was just surprised when you…"

She stops herself when she remembers his hand going for her necklace, so she frowns at him. "What exactly were you doing?"

Luffy looks at the necklace and points to it. "I was curious about your necklace."

Rose quietly sighs in exasperation as she looks down at the necklace and caresses the crystal between her fingers. "You too huh?"

Luffy tilts his head at the question. "Too?"

Rose nods as she gently smiles at the beautiful gem that helped bring her to this world. "I've been wondering what this crystal is for years. My parents gave it to me back when I was a kid, but they never told me what it was before they died. No matter where I looked, I couldn't even find a name for this gem, but it's still special to me."

Luffy blinks at the explanation before he grins at her. "Oh, I get it! It's a mystery treasure!"

Rose chuckles at the name for her gem before she lets go of the necklace. "You can say that. I'm sure I'll find out more about it as I get deeper into my research since..."

She stops herself when she feels like she's giving him too many pieces of her secret. _*Dammit, he's too easy to talk to!*_

She shakes her head as she turns away from Luffy and looks out to the ocean for any oncoming ships. "Never mind, let's get started on this night watch."

Luffy freezes at the retreat when he remembers what they're supposed to be doing, so he turns around so that their backs are leaning on each other as he looks out for boats on his end.

After a few minutes of silence, Luffy breaks it by groaning to his boredom. "Man, where are all the ships?"

Rose chuckles at the complaint as she hugs her knees and keeps looking around. "Who knows, we probably won't see any tonight."

"Then what else can we do?"

She shrugs to the question, as if he can see her, before she looks up at the straw hat on top of his messy hair. "You know, I don't think you ever told me the story behind your hat."

Luffy perks up at the mention of his treasure before he stretches his neck backwards, so that he can see her. "You want to hear it?"

She nods with a large grin. "Since you were so curious about my treasure, I can't help but want to hear your story. If you don't want to talk about it though, it's fine."

"Nah, I'll tell you." Luffy says before he brings his neck back into place, turns around, and then turns Rose around to face him.

The captain takes his hat off and grins at it before he starts speaking. "I got this hat when I made a promise to a good friend."

As Luffy goes on to tell Rose the story of when Shanks saved his life, the wind girl is hanging on to every word he says. Even though she already knows the story, she'd rather hear it from Luffy's point of view any day, because it's all the more real and feels as if she's truly getting to know her captain.

For the entire story Luffy keeps a large smile on his face at the thought of his childhood hero, and when he reaches the end of the tale he puts his hat back on his head. "When Shanks gave me this, we made a promise that I'd give it back to him when I become a great pirate. I wonder how he's doing now."

Rose grins at the captain before she looks out at the vast ocean around them. "He's probably sailing around somewhere on this sea. Who knows, maybe you guys will run into each other when you get closer to the One Piece."

Luffy grins at the thought of seeing his friend again as he follows her gaze to the water. "Yea, I'm sure we will."

Rose adjusts herself so that her back is to Luffy as she gets back to searching for ships, but there are still none to be found. When she feels Luffy's back against hers again, she pauses when she feels him slightly shiver from the cold night. She grabs the blanket that she abandoned when she tackled Luffy and holds it up right above Luffy. "Here you go."

Luffy looks up at the large blanket before he brightly smiles and grabs it. "Thanks!"

"Any-" She stops herself when Luffy not only wraps himself in the blanket, but throws it over his shoulder so that she's tucked in along with him. She looks down at the blankets before she grins and looks back to the ocean. "Anytime."

She begins to relax as she goes back to her night watch duties, when Luffy looks up at the starry sky. "Hey Rose, what other star stories do you know?"

Rose blinks at the question before she looks up at the sky in thought of the next constellation to tell him about. "Let's see, you remember the story of Hercules?"

"Yea."

"Well, I failed to tell you that the story made more than one constellation. During Hercules' trials another constellation was made called the cancer constellation. It's supposed to represent a crab."

Luffy widens his eyes at the mentions of a crab before he looks over the night sky with stars shining in his own eyes. "Really?! Where is it?!"

Rose chuckles at the enthusiasm in his voice as she looks over her shoulder. "Why are you so excited? You can't eat it."

"I still wanna see it!"

She softly grins at his childlike excitement as she looks up at the countless stars above them. "Sorry, I can't tell which one it is from all these stars. I can still tell you the story if you want."

Luffy eagerly smiles as he looks up at the stars to search for the constellation as if he knows exactly what it looks like. "Yea, I wanna know!"

She chuckles at the request, before she begins telling him the story of the cancer constellation. The pattern then soon began with the pair exchanging adventure and constellation stories to one another under the star filled sky for the entire evening.

* * *

As the sun begins to rise for the next morning, the only sound that can be heard from the crow's nest was the sound of Luffy's loud snoring. However, the noise doesn't bother Rose as the two of them are fast asleep on the floor with the blanket covering them both from toe to neck.

Rose turns to her side away from Luffy and tries to grab her blanket, but she feels her arms stuck to her sides. She grumbles as she slowly wakes up and tries to move her arms to rub her eyes, but her arms are still stuck. "What the hell?"

She manages to sit up, which allows the blanket to fall off her to reveal Luffy's arms wrapped around her multiple times from her waist to just below her chest. Her red face starts to match Luffy's vest from the embrace as she tries to pull her arms free. "Ah dammit, wake up Lu- Ah!"

She yelps in shock when Luffy pulls her down until her face is just a few inches away from his. She looks at the peaceful face that doesn't have a care in the world, and sees that he shows no signs of letting her go. She looks down at how strong, yet not tight, his embrace is then looks at him in confusion. "Why do you keep hugging me?"

The only answer she got from him was the sound of his snores, so she sighs in frustration as she tries to squirm her arms free. She stops when she comes up with an idea, and smirks at the sleeping captain as if she's about to beat him in a fight. "You're not the only one who can use their powers here."

She flies up a few feet into the air, but Luffy's arms continue stretching to keep themselves around her. She doesn't give up though, as she turns her right arm into wind and re-materializes it out of his embrace. Her victorious smirk grows as she repeats the process with her other arm, so that she can use her arms again. "Alright, now we're getting somewhere."

She looks down at her torso to try to find Luffy's hands, but when she looks down she sees Zoro looking up at her with a shit eating smirk. "Had fun with Luffy last night?"

Rose narrows her eyes at the swordsman as she tries to pull herself free. "Shut up, nothing happened!"

Zoro snickers at her situation as he watches her search for the hands. "Doesn't look like nothing happened."

"Fight me!" Rose says when she finds Luffy's hands on her sides and starts unwrapping herself. When she reaches the last loop, she smirks in victory as she releases the hands so that his arms retract to their owner.

Zoro continues to watch as Rose descends until she's just above the crow's nest, then uses her wind to grab her bag. As she straps it onto her back, he fails to tell her that Luffy's arms are stretching towards her.

Just when Rose is about to descend, she yelps in shock when Luffy's arms wrap around her waist and pulls her onto the crow's nest again.

She groans at the pull when she finds herself lying on Luffy's chest with her face just next to his unconscious face. She blushes at the new position as Zoro's laughter fills in the air from witnessing the pull.

Once Zoro finished laughing, he calls up to Rose while he heads to the back deck to train. "Looks like you got your hands full to fight me right now. Come down when you guys are done with your fun."

Rose twitches an eyebrow at the remark as she plans to get back at the swordsman once she's free. Speaking of which, she tries to get off Luffy's chest, but his arms won't let her out as he keeps a strong hold around her waist.

She groans in frustration as she gets ready to shake him, but stops when she sees Luffy so relaxed in his sleep. Compared to how hyper he is during the day, this is another side of him that she hasn't seen a lot of. She doesn't have the heart to wake him up when he looks so peaceful, so she decides to go back to sleep for a bit.

She lays her head just next to his as she lets her arms rest on top of Luffy's muscular chest, and shuts her eyes to drift off to sleep. However, the peace was short lived for after a few minutes Sanji's voice fills the air.

"GUYS, BREAKFAST!"

Luffy's eyes immediately shot open at the sound of food, and he immediately sits up and lets go of Rose. "Food!"

He looks to see that he accidentally dropped his astronomer as she groans and sits up. "You can't sleep all day Rose, we gotta eat!"

Rose twitches an eyebrow at the complaint as she watches him get up and climb down with only one thing in mind. _*I'm waking his rubber ass up next time.*_

She sighs as she puts her blanket back in the bag, and flies off the crow's nest to get onto the deck. As she walks to the kitchen Nami stops her with an eager smile. "So Rose, how did night watch go?"

She scowls at the reminder of what caused her crazy morning while a light gust of hot air blows off of her. "Your new system sucks. We wound up falling asleep. Just keep having one member up a night."

Nami blinks at the answer as she watches Rose walk off in agitation. She sighs in disappointment of her plan not giving them any progress, and goes into the kitchen to start the day with the others.

* * *

As the morning continues on for the crew, the sound of two swords clashing fills the air as Zoro does his daily sparring match with Rose on the back deck.

Zoro chuckles as the one sword he's using continuously attacks Rose while his opponent rushes to block the blows with her katana. "You know you gotta hit back to win, right?"

Rose clenches her teeth as she resists the urge to kick him as she struggles to block and search for an opening. She sees him about to do another sideways strike, so she decides to risk it as she ducks to dodge the blow and gives him an upwards strike with the back of the blade. However, before it can touch anything, Zoro steps back to avoid the blow and then low sweeps her with the back of his blade to knock her off balance.

Zoro chuckles at the attempt to get him as he watches her fall on her back. "Not bad, you almost got a hit today."

Rose quickly gets up for another round, but Zoro sheathes his blade and walks off. "One loss a day is enough for you. We can start having two matches a day when you can land a hit on me."

Rose twitches an eyebrow at the smugness in his voice as he goes to his weights, but she silently agrees to the deal as she sheathes her sword and goes below deck to hit the showers.

Meanwhile, the rest of the crew are sailing on when they see a large island coming into view.

Luffy grins at the island mixed with forest and cities nearby, before he turns to the others. "Let's go check it out!"

Nami looks at the log pose to see that the island isn't what the log pose is leading to. "We can't stay too long; the pose isn't set for this island."

"That's fine as long as we can go see it." Luffy says as they get to work on moving the ship towards the island.

As the ship gets to a hidden spot near the woods to dock, Nami goes inside to collect her bag of eternal poses to sell in town, before she heads off the ship with the boys.

Sanji looks up to see that Robin's not leaving the ship. "You're not coming Robin?"

Robin nods with a calm smile as she leans on the railing. "Not this time, I have some reading I want to catch up on."

"As you wish Robin-chan!" Sanji says with hearts in his eyes as he joins Nami.

The navigator looks back at Robin and calls out to her. "When Rose comes out, tell her that she can come join us if she wants."

Robin nods in agreement as she waves them off.

Zoro trails behind and looks back to see Robin still smiling at them from the ship. He starts having second thoughts about leaving Robin there, but since Rose is still on board he allows himself to head off into the woods to go train.

When the rest of the crew is out of their sights, Robin looks to the door leading to below deck to see that Rose still hasn't come out yet. With the two of them the only ones on the ship, Robin feels that now could be as good a time as any to put her suspicions against her to rest.

Robin grabs the notebook that's lying on the table and writes a note on it, before she tears the page out of the book. She tied the page onto the mast with a piece of rope before she goes into the kitchen.

A few minutes later, Rose goes outside to join the others, but sees that there's no one on the deck. "Guys?"

She looks around to see if anyone's around, but stops when she sees that they docked. "Another island?" She starts heading to the railing, when she sees the note on the mast that's tied on by a piece of rope.

She walks up to the mast and grabs the paper as she looks at the message in confusion.

 **Hello Wind-chan,**

Sorry for the short notice, but everyone went out to resupply. Navigator-san says that you're to guard the ship until we get back. We have to pick up a lot of ingredients for Cook-san, so don't expect us back for a while.

Robin

Rose sweat drops at the message before she sighs, folds it, and places it in her pocket. _*At least Robin left me a note. Guess I got the place to myself.*_

She looks around for something to do when she spots the goat figurehead standing isolated at the front of the ship. She softly stares at the ship when she thinks of how every time the crew docks on the island, the ship has to stay behind during the adventures. Knowing that the ship doesn't have a lot of adventures left, Rose decides that she's going to spend the day entertaining Merry.

Full of new determination, Rose goes back inside the ship and comes out just a few moments later with her guitar in hand.

Rose grins in excitement as she sits on the railing, right next to the figurehead, with her legs hanging over the edge to the outside of the ship. The brunette leaves the instrument on her lap as she takes off her gloves and stuffs them in her jacket pocket before she turns her attention to the guitar's tuning keys. "Sorry I'm not as good as Brook, but I'm confident that I know all the chords for this one."

The guitarist is only answered with silence as she finishes tuning the guitar and starts playing the chords to Binks' Sake.

As Rose wholeheartedly sings the lyrics to her favorite song from this world, she doesn't notice that on the mast Robin planted an eye and an ear to observe her. However, once she sees that Rose is only performing, she cancels the eye and allows the ear to stay to listen to the smooth singing voice outside.

Robin relaxes on her seat at the table and grins at the fact that even though Rose thinks that she's alone, she has no desire to use the eternal pose whatsoever. _*Looks like she's not going to steal the ship after all. I wonder who Brook is.*_

She disregards the thought as she gets back to her place in the book she kept in the kitchen. Now that she knows that the ship won't be hijacked, she allows herself a peaceful afternoon while listening to Rose's song.

* * *

As the crew went off on their own to explore the island, Luffy wanders around on his own in the woods to find an adventure, but instead found a tree full of bananas. He grins in excitement as he climbs on the tree and eats one banana after the other.

As he feasts on the fruit at the top of the tree, he fails to notice that in the surrounding trees tops a horde of twenty monkeys are glaring at their banana thief.

As Luffy chews on his tenth banana, he stops when he hears rustling in the trees and the looks around just when the monkeys jump out of their trees to attack him. However, Luffy quickly jumps up to dodge their fury and pulls his fists back. "Gum Gum Gatling!"

The monkeys look up in shock just before Luffy punches them so fast that they couldn't see it coming until they plummeted to the ground. Once every monkey was knocked out, Luffy lands on the ground while he looks down at them. "Man, what's with the monkeys here?"

He shrugs to himself as he goes off to wander when he hears a guitar playing. He blinks at the music before he curiously follows the sound. As he gets closer to the source, he starts hearing a feminine voice singing along to the chords.

 _Well you done, done me and you bet I felt it~  
I tried to be chill but you're so hot I melted~  
I fell right through the cracks~  
And now I'm trying to get back~  
Before the cool done run out~  
I'll be giving it my best-est~  
And nothing's going to stop me but divine intervention~  
I reckon it's again my turn,~  
To win some or learn some~_

But I won't hesitate no more, no more~  
It cannot wait, I'm yours~

Luffy blinks at the odd lyrics that he's never heard before as he keeps following the sound until he sees the Going Merry in view. "Huh?"

He goes to the ship while he listens to the next verse of I'm Yours by Jason Mraz.

 _Well open up your mind and see like me~  
Open up your plans and damn you're free~  
Look into your heart and you'll find love, love, love, love~  
Listen to the music of the moment people dance and sing~  
We are just one big family~  
And it's our God-forsaken right to be loved, loved, loved, loved, loved~_

As Luffy listens to the song, he stretches his arms up to grab the railing and pulls himself up. He keeps his arms on the railing as he hangs on and scans the deck for the source of the music. When he looks towards the figurehead he drops his jaw when he sees Rose seated on the railing with her guitar. _*SHE'S A MUSICIAN?!*_

Rose doesn't notice the new addition to the audience, as she relaxes on her seat next to the figurehead with her back to the goat statue, while she stares at the space in front of her. She continues to block out everything around her as she strums up the guitar on her lap.

 _So, I won't hesitate no more, no more~  
It cannot wait I'm sure~  
There's no need to complicate~  
Our time is short~  
This is our fate, I'm yours.~_

Luffy becomes completely speechless at the amazing voice as his heart starts to feel like it's floating on air. He pulls his body over the railing and takes a seat as he looks down at his chest. _*Why do I feel so weird?*_

He puts his hand to his chest, but it doesn't change the strange feeling in his chest. He looks back to see Rose flashing a lovely smile up to the sky as she keeps playing.

 _I've been spending way too long checking my tongue in the mirror~  
And bending over backwards just to try to see it clearer~  
But my breath fogged up the glass~  
And so I drew a new face and I laughed~_

Luffy chuckles at the weird lyrics as he lets go of his chest and ignores the mystery feeling as he sways to the fun rhythm.

 _I guess what I been saying is there ain't no better reason~  
To rid yourself of vanity and just go with the seasons~  
It's what we aim to do~  
Our name is our virtue~_

But I won't hesitate no more, no more~  
It cannot wait I'm yours~

As Luffy listens to the last refrain of the song he can't help but enjoy every second of this new side of his crew mate. When he normally sees her space out, it always feels like she's putting up a barrier around herself. However, as she's off in her own world with her guitar, it's more like she's lowering her walls to give whoever is hearing a taste of what she's holding out on them. Because of that, he doesn't want the song to ever end.

Sadly though, the final chord has been played followed by Rose chuckling at the fun performance she had. She still doesn't notice the extra audience as she lifts her head back, so that she can look up at the figurehead. "I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did Merry. My next song was always a crowd pleaser too."

"You would perform for the ship, but not your crew?!" Rose finally realizes that she's not alone and looks to see Luffy walking up to her.

Rose blinks at her annoyed captain's arrival as she swings her legs, so that they're dangling off the rails to the deck. "When did you get here?"

"I've been here since halfway through the song! How come you never told me that you were a musician?!"

Rose looks down at the guitar then back to the lanky boy in front of her before she chuckles. "Sorry Luffy, it slipped my mind. Though I don't think you can call me a musician since I don't plan to be one."

Luffy widens his dark eyes at the news. "Eh?! Why not?!"

"As much as I love performing I'm nowhere near as good as a professional. Besides, I got my research to work on. You need someone who's fully committed to music to be your musician."

He can only blink at the explanation before he sighs in disappointment. "Fine, but can you still play until we find one?"

Rose grins at the request and nods. "Sure, I can use the practice. What did you think of the song I just played?"

Luffy thinks back on how he felt during her song and realizes that his chest doesn't have that mystery feeling anymore. "It made me feel weird."

The guitarist raises an eyebrow at the critique. "Weird?"

The captain nods before he puts a hand on his heart. "Yea, my chest felt funny when I heard you sing."

She knits her eyebrows in thought on how that's possible. "That's odd, you don't feel anything now right?"

He shakes his head. "No, I feel fine now."

She hums in confusion as she tries to come up with an explanation for this. _*That song is pretty good, but it's not really meant to move people… Then again, I never drew as large of a crowd than when I played in Alabasta…*_

She chuckles at the explanation she came up with while she relaxes. "I think I know what's going on. You're just enjoying a new song."

Luffy tilts his head at the explanation. "What do you mean?"

"When someone hears a new song then they get drawn to it if they like it."

He blinks at the reasoning before he smiles at her. "Oh, well I liked that song. Can you play another one?"

She nods before she looks at her guitar in thought of a fun song for the two of them to enjoy. When she picks a song, she gets her fingers on the guitar strings while she gives her captain a playful smirk. "I know just the song to pass the time."

* * *

As Nami, Sanji, Usopp, and Chopper walk back to the ship, they stop when they see Zoro walking from the woods to head to town.

When Zoro sees them, he stops and looks at them in confusion. "What are you guys doing?"

"We should be asking you that. Where were you this whole time?" Usopp asks causing Zoro to point ahead.

"I was training and now I'm getting back to the ship."

"But the ship's that way." Chopper says as he points to the path behind him, so he groans in frustration.

"You better just come with us, so you don't get lost moss head." Sanji says, earning a glare from the swordsman as they head back towards the ship.

Zoro looks at the group to see a rubber man is missing, and looks at them in confusion. "Luffy's not with you guys?"

Nami sighs in frustration of how they lost their captain in just five minutes of arriving at the island, and looks at the Going Merry that's up ahead. "He went off on his own. We didn't hear any chaos in town so he's probably in the woods. When I put this stuff away I'll-"

 _HAKUNA MATATA!~  
What a wonderful phrase!~_

The group stops their conversation when they hear two voices singing boisterously to Hakuna Matata, with a guitar playing in the background, as they approach the ship.

 _Hakuna Matata!~  
Ain't no passing craze!~_

The crew climbs onto the ship, and widens their eyes when they see Rose playing the guitar on the railing with Luffy sitting next to her as the two of them sing their hearts out.

 _It means no worries for the rest of your days!~  
It's our problem free!~  
Philosophy!~  
Hakuna Matata!~_

The pair stop singing to laugh at the fun song while the others just look at them in confusion.

"What kind of a song was that?" The pair stops to Usopp's question to see that they have company.

Rose grins at the group while she rests her arms on the guitar. "Hey guys, that was just a song from my childhood."

"Yea, her songs are pretty fun." Luffy says with a toothy grin.

Nami sighs at the comment as she looks back at the peaceful town they shopped at. "If you wanted to play your guitar, then you should've performed in town. You could've made some good money from it."

Rose raises an eyebrow at the suggestion when she remembers the note telling her to stay on the ship. "But-"

She stops when, from the corner of her eye, she sees the door quietly open as Robin sneaks into the back of the group.

Nami looks at her in confusion as she waits for her to finish. "But what?"

She looks to see Robin standing in the crowd as if she was always there before she smiles at Nami. "But then Merry would've been bored all day. I can't leave her out of the fun."

Nami sweat drops at the weird comment before she tiredly sighs. "Alright, whatever." She looks to see that everyone's present before she looks down at her log pose. "We should get going before the log pose resets itself."

"Yes Nami!" Sanji says with hearts in his eyes as he goes off with all the boys to sail off the island.

As the ship leaves the island to get back on course, Rose stays on her seat on the railing as she looks over to Robin to see her enjoying the ocean view from her seat at the lawn table. Whether or not Robin notices that she's being watched is uncertain to the astronomer, but regardless Rose turns away to stare at the ocean to try to figure out what's going on.

Rose knows for certain that Robin was here with her, but what she doesn't understand is why would she make it look like she was alone on the ship. As she keeps wondering what Robin's planning, she can't help but start to worry. _*Was she trying to test me? I thought I was being careful with my knowledge. Wait, oh shit...*_

She widens her eyes in shock as she realizes that she spoke the crew's future musician's name out loud, with Robin overhearing. She groans to herself as she runs a hand through her brown hair. She knows that just saying Brook's name doesn't reveal anything, but she knows now that she needs to be more careful around the archaeologist in the future arcs.

"Rose, wake up!" The wind girl snaps back to reality to Luffy's voice and sees him, Usopp and Chopper going up to her.

Rose looks at them in confusion as she adjusts the guitar on her lap. "What's up?"

"Can you play that song you were singing with Luffy again?" Chopper asks with pleading eyes.

Rose couldn't help but grin at the adorable reindeer as she gets her hands on the strings. "Absolutely, the name of the song is-"

She stops herself when something lands right beside her. She and the others look in confusion to see that it's a wood chip.

"Did that fall from the crow's nest?" Usopp asks when another piece of wood lands right next to him.

The group looks at it in confusion and then looks up to try to find the source. What they didn't expect though, was pieces of a ship falling from the sky.

"What the hell?" Sanji asks as he stops smoking on the deck when a wood chip hits his shoulder. He and the rest of the crew look up in confusion.

However, once they look up they drop their jaws along with Luffy's group to see that not just wood chips are falling, but also a giant, old, battle worn warship.

"Is that a galleon?!" Nami asks when Rose sets the guitar on the deck and flies up to the sails.

"Guys, grab onto something!" Rose calls out as she starts blasting her wind onto the sails to try to get them at a safe distance from the ship. However, she wasn't quick enough as the galleon hits the water and creates a mass of tidal waves for the Merry to endure.

The ship moves along the waves with the screaming crew on board as they hold onto the boat for dear life.

As the ship moves to the waves, Rose had to fly to the right to dodge the shaking mast from hitting her. She quickly lands on the crow's nest and holds onto the edge while she looks over the broken down galleon, that's fragments are floating not even a mile away from them. _*This is it, we're heading to the Sky Island arc!*_

She uses her wind to block any wooden beams from crashing onto the ship as she continues to hold onto the crow's nest.

"This can't be happening! This has to be a nightmare!" Usopp says as he links his arm to the railing while closing his eyes. "Everything should be back to normal once I wake up."

He opens his eyes again, but instead of the peaceful morning that he was hoping for, he opens his eyes to a skeleton falling towards him. "AAAH! SKELETON!"

He jumps backwards to avoid the skeleton where he bumps into Nami. Once she sees the skeleton on the deck, she joins him in screaming in fright as the waves continue to send Merry on a wild ride.

Once the waves finally settle down, the crew finds the ship floating just in front of the broken ship. Rose silently flies off the crow's nest to join the rest of the crew as they recover from the crazy experience they just had.

Luffy adjusts his hat and looks up at the sky in confusion to see that there's nothing out of the ordinary in the blue sky. "How did a ship fall from the sky?"

"No clue, there's nothing up there." Zoro says as he stands up and looks up along with most of the others.

Nami sees nothing there, then checks their direction on the log pose to see that instead of the arrow pointing forward it's pointing up. "On no! What now?!"

Sanji looks at Nami in confusion. "What's the matter Nami?"

The navigator looks at the log pose on her wrist with concern on how to get the crew on track. "The log pose must be broken. It's pointing up."

Robin takes a closer look at the log pose then stares up at the sky with a serious look on her face. "The log pose isn't broken. It's being attracted to another magnetic field. Since it's pointing up, that means it's a sky island."

The rest of the crew look at her in utter shock while Rose could only stare at the sky where the crew's new adventures and challenges await them.

TO BE CONTINUED

* * *

 **A/N: Hey guys, I hope you enjoyed the new chapter. I also want to thank those of you who gave their votes and opinions about whether I should make the movies a side series or a part of the main story.**

 **The votes came in with side series: 10 and main story: 5 which means that the movies will be placed in a side series.**

 **It will be a while before I can get a start on this but to help get you excited here is the list of movies I'm planning on placing in the series: Dead End Adventure, Strong World, (Z is a maybe), and The gold pair.**

 **Until I get them up I hope you enjoy my future chapters. :)**


	26. Chapter 26

While most of the crew were shocked at Robin's theory that there could be an island in the sky, Luffy only thought of the new adventures that are up there as he looks at her with stars in his eyes. "An island can really float?!"

Usopp looks from the sky to the skeleton that's lying dead on the deck in pure astonishment. "You're saying that the shipwreck and skeleton came from up there?!"

When Chopper sees nothing out of the ordinary up there, he looks at Robin in confusion. "That can't be right, there's nothing up there."

Robin shakes her head as she turns to the others. "It's not like a regular island. It's more like it's on a floating ocean."

"That's even more confusing." Zoro says as he looks up at the normal blue sky along with the others.

"There's a floating island on a floating sea?! Well, let's go!" Luffy calls out, but he was only answered with Robin growing arms off his shoulders to cover his mouth and knock him down.

Sanji sighs at his captain's over excitement as he lights his cigarette. "This ship can't go up captain."

Robin keeps her hands on Luffy's mouth as she keeps going. "While I have heard rumors, I've never seen a sky island."

"That's because it's impossible!" Nami says as she looks at her log pose. "The log pose has to be broken. There's no such thing as a sky island."

Rose sighs at Nami's disbelief as she looks to the broken galleon. "I wouldn't be saying that Nami. A sky island can very well be up there for all we know."

Robin nods in agreement as she releases her arms from Luffy. "Wind-chan has a point, we shouldn't be worrying about the log pose but about how we can go up."

Luffy, Usopp and Chopper blink at the conclusion before they turn to the wind girl.

"Not happening." Rose says bluntly without even sparing the three of them a glance.

The trio widen their eyes at the quick refusal before Usopp tries to defend them. "You don't know what we're gonna ask!"

Rose chuckles at the accusation as she crosses her arms over her chest and smirks at him. "Oh yea? I bet you guys are gonna ask me to use my wind to bring the ship up to the sky. If I'm wrong, then go ahead and tell me."

The three of them don't say a thing, so she starts floating away. "I thought so. It's not like I wouldn't, but I can't take things out of the water with my wind. I don't know how long I could keep a ship flying up anyway. I'm gonna go to the shipwreck to see if we can find another way there."

She flies towards the wreck while Luffy stretches his arms to the broken ship to grab onto it. Usopp clings onto the captain before Luffy rockets the two of them onto the boat in order to search through the contents along with Rose.

As the three of them search through the ruins of the slowly sinking ship, Luffy sees a crate floating toward him. He stretches his arm to grab the box and lifts the lid to find stacks of paper. He looks in confusion as he looks through them until he stops at a map that's titled 'Skypiea'.

He grins at the detailed map in pure excitement as he turns to Rose and Usopp. "Guys, look! I found a- AH!"

The hull of the ship, that he was standing on, sinks into the water and takes him down with it. Luffy tries his best to stay afloat but he's quickly sinking. "Help!"

Usopp looks at his captain in shock before he dives into the water to go after him.

Rose quickly grabs a coil of five-foot rope, and flies above the ship just before the rest of the remains sink to the bottom of the ocean. When Usopp swims back to the surface with Luffy in his arms, his eyes were met with an end of the rope dangling in front of him.

He looked up to see Rose flying above them, with the other end of the brown rope looped around her wrist and her fist clenched onto it. "Grab on."

Usopp nods as he grabs the rope with one hand while his other arm stays around the captain's torso to keep his head above water. As Rose drags the two men to the ship, she looks back at them curiously. "What were you calling us about before you sunk Luffy?"

Luffy smiles at Rose as he lifts his right arm up to show them the scrunched-up map. "I got a map of the sky island!"

Usopp widens his eyes at the announcement as he turns to Luffy. "You're serious?!"

He nods with a toothy grin as they reach the ship. Chopper grabs a rope ladder for the boys and set it out for them to climb on.

Usopp releases his end on the rope, so Rose can reel it in and then drops it on the deck, while Usopp and Luffy get on the ship.

Once Luffy shakes himself off, he grins at the crew while he shows them his map of Skypiea. "Look at this, I got a map!"

Nami widens her eyes at the map as she grabs the map and looks it over. "Skypiea?!"

"Since there's a map then that means there really is a sky island!" Luffy says just before he, Usopp and Chopper start dancing to celebrate.

Nami examines the legitimate looking map before she tiredly frowns at the excited trio. "You can't just rely on this. There are a lot of fake maps out there."

The three of them immediately stop dancing to give Nami a look of utter despair, and makes her to regret her statement. "Uh, I mean… Of course there is…"

She groans in frustration of her captain's refusal to let this matter go. "I'm just saying that I don't know how to get there!"

"You're the navigator, figure it out!" Luffy retorts as the two of them get into an argument.

Zoro raises an eyebrow at the argument before he turns to Rose. "Didn't you steal a bunch of eternal poses a few islands back?"

Rose stiffens up at the reminder before she looks away from him. "Yea, but from a marine base. We could be sailing straight to a prison island if we use one of those."

After Nami whacks Luffy on the head to end their argument, she tiredly sighs as she turns to the others. "Rose is right, and we can't use them anyway since I sold them all at the last island."

Half of the boys sweat drop at their navigator's greediness as she looks down at the log pose that's still pointing up.

Nami quietly sighs as she looks back at the spot where the galleon sunk. "It's like Robin said, we need more information on how to go up. If a ship that large could do it, then there has to be a way for the Merry to get there."

Chopper tilts his head at the statement before he follows her gaze to where the shipwreck was. "But the ship already sunk."

The redhead narrows her eyes at the ship's former spot before she clenches her fists. "In that case, we're gonna salvage it!"

Luffy and Usopp cheer in agreement. "Let's do it!"

Chopper tilts his head in confusion. "What's salvage?"

"It means to pull the sunken ship back to the surface, but it's too big for us." Robin says as she takes a seat to relax.

Rose looks to see Usopp suiting Sanji, Luffy, and Zoro up with barrel suits before she looks down at the doctor. "It looks like they're gonna go scuba diving for the ship's stuff instead."

Chopper looks to see that Zoro and Sanji have been fitted into barrels with their torsos suited into the barrels and their arms covered in scuba gloves.

Luffy grins at the barrel suit he's wearing, that covers both his torso and legs, and moves his gloved arms around to see that he can move them freely. "This is so cool."

He looks up at the air pipes, that are connected to the top of all three of their suits, to see that they're connected to a large fishing reel. "Is this really going to work?"

Usopp nods as he pats the reel and shows them the three funnels on top of the machine. "Of course, this is as close to perfect as you're gonna get. We can even speak to you while you're underwater with this baby."

Zoro stays silent of Usopp's confidence while Sanji swoons to Nami. "Not to worry Nami! I'll be sure to find what you need to bring us to the sky!"

Nami nods with a casual grin. "I'm counting on you guys!"

Chopper goes into heavy point and pulls on the lever to release the air lines just before the boys jump into the unknown depths of the Grand Line.

As the reel keeps feeding the trio more of the line Chopper speaks into the three sound devices at the top of the machine. "Guys, this is Chopper. Can you hear me?"

Luffy's voice begins to ring out through the speaker on the right. "This is Luffy! Whoa, there are a ton of monsters down here!"

Zoro's voice starts speaking up from the middle speaker at he looks around his underwater surroundings. "Is that a sea snakes den?"

Sanji's voice comes out of the last speaker as the surprised chef sees the den. "Sanji here and oh shit, they're coming this way!"

The sounds stop coming out of the three devices with the rest of the crew looking at them blankly.

Nami nods in satisfaction as she turns away from the machine. "Looks like it worked."

"What part of that worked?!" Usopp asks as he looks at his carefree friend in utter shock.

Nami brushes off his worry as she leans on the railing and looks at the reel. "Those three will be fine. Chopper, pull the brake."

"Ok." Chopper complies to the demand as he pulls on the brake to stop any more of the air line from going into the water.

Rose quietly sighs in relief that things seem to be to be going smoothly when she remembers what's to come next. She puts her bag down so that she can get ready to grab her camera when everyone begins to hear singing from the distance.

 _SALVAGE~_

 _SALVAGE~_

 _SALVAGE~_

 _SALVAGE THE SEA~_

The others look out in confusion to see a giant ship, with a monkey and cross bananas painted on the sails, approaching the Merry. Half the crew members stand by the railing to play the cymbals in unison while they continue to chant 'Salvage'.

Robin raises an eyebrow at the upcoming crew when they hear a whistle blow to stop the chant.

"STOP THE SHIP!" The Straw Hats look up in mild shock to see a large man, who looks just like a gorilla in an orange-yellow jumpsuit, approach the railing.

The monkey man doesn't notice the other pirates as he speaks to his crew. "Men, is this where the ship landed?"

"Yes sir, Captain Masira!" His crew mates called out in unison, so the ape man happily cheers while he raises his massive arms into the air.

"THEN PREPARE TO SALVAGE THE SHIP! OOK! OOK!"

The crew members chant out monkey sounds back to their captain as they ready their large hooks to send them to the ocean floor.

The Straw Hats just sweat drop at the scene in front of them as they blankly watch them get ready to salvage.

"Just when I thought this day couldn't be any weirder…" Nami says as she watches the monkey man order his men around.

When the large man finally notices that his ship's not the only one afloat, he looks at the other crew in confusion. "What are you guys doing in my territory?"

Rose feigns confusion as she tilts her head. "Territory?"

Masira nods as he scowls at the intruders. "That's right, every sunken ship around these parts belongs to me. None of you messed with my stuff, right?"

Robin raises an eyebrow at the question before she silently speaks to Nami and Usopp. "Looks like he wants to salvage the ship too."

Nami nods with a mischievous grin as she whispers back. "So what? This is our chance!"

"OI, STOP BLABBERING AND ANSWER MY QUESTION!" Masira yells out as his patience starts to shrink.

The navigator gives him a friendly smile as she raises her hand. "Sorry, but can I ask you a question?"

The monkey man looks at them in shock before he nods with a grin. "You wanna ask me something?! Go ahead!"

"Where did you come from? Are you planning to scrape the sunken ship?"

The monkey man completely ignores the question as soon as he mistook the word scrape for ape. "Do you think I look like a monkey?"

Chopper sweat drops at the off-topic question. "She didn't say anything like that…"

Masira just ignores him as he chuckles from the compliment he thought he received. "Hahaha, thanks for noticing!"

Usopp raises an eyebrow at the odd man before he puts on a nervous smile. "S-so are you going to salvage the ship?"

Masira smirks with pride as he gives him a thumbs up. "Of course I am! No matter how large the sunken ship is, there's not a single boat that I can't salvage!"

"Then can we watch?" Nami asks with an innocent smile, so he looks at them in shock.

"You guys never saw a salvage before?!" He immediately beams with excitement as he points to his crew. "Alright, just watch us and you'll see how it's done!"

Rose goes to grab her camera with an excited grin while the rest of the group begins to calm down.

"Boss!" Everyone turns their attention of one of Masira's crew members who is slumping down over one of his knocked-out scuba divers. "The crew that went down below to hook the ship has been knocked out cold!"

Masira narrows his eyes at the news as he goes over to his knocked-out men. "Was it a sea monster?"

"No sir, it looks like they were punched! Someone might be down there!"

Fury begins to well up in the monkey man from the possibility before he turns to the Merry. "Hey you!"

Nami, Usopp and Chopper tense up under his glare as the other two girls remain calm under his anger.

"There's something going on down there so be careful!"

The scared trio calms down, when they realize that he didn't figure out that it was Luffy, and nod with a nervous grin.

Masira casually waves at them before he turns to his crew with excitement in his eyes. "Alright men, just ignore the audience and salvage the ship! Don't be nervous!"

The men nervously chant before they get to work in getting a second team of men into scuba suits. As they work on setting up their next team, they make an extra effort to make their work shown to the Straw Hats.

Usopp sweat drops at the extra effort as he stares at their work. "It looks like they're really proud of salvaging…"

"Probably just want to show off." Nami says when she hears a camera going off and turns to see Rose taking pictures of their process. "What are you doing?"

Rose casually grins as she takes a picture of their scuba suits. "I've never seen a proper salvage before. Besides, doesn't taking pictures make us look more innocent?"

Nami blinks at the explanation before she nods. "Good idea."

Robin raises an eyebrow at the plan as she watches Rose take a break from her photography to sling her backpack back on.

Rose looks from the corner of her eye to see Robin's eyes on her before she looks back to the monkey ship. The brunette shakes her head to snap out of it before she gets back to photographing the scuba divers about to jump into the water.

"Be careful of the mysterious enemy guys!" Masira says as he watches his three scuba divers dive into the depths of the Grand Line.

Just a few moments later Usopp's communication devices on his barrel suits start acting up from Luffy's voice. "Whoa, what's with the-?!"

Usopp and Nami quickly block all three communication devices with their hands, but that didn't stop Luffy's outburst from being heard by Masira. "What was that?"

Usopp scrambles to find an excuse for the outburst when he points to the other ship's monkey figurehead. "W-whoa, what's with the figurehead?!"

Masira looks to his figurehead before he smiles at his guests. "Oh, so you noticed huh? This figurehead isn't just here for decoration!"

The crew looks at him in confusion as he calls out to his men. "Barco Hunter forward!"

"Yes sir!" The salvagers rush to the front of the ship to get to work on attaching a hook to the metal loop on the monkey's head.

Once done, they got to work on cranking the giant fishing line to push the line along with the hook and figurehead off the ship. Once it's a few feet from the ship, the crew releases the line to drop the statue into the water.

The Straw Hats look in shock to see that instead of the statue floating, it dove into the water.

"Whoa, that's so cool!" Chopper says as he and Usopp stare at the working crew in awe.

Nami and Robin watch the crew curiously as Rose takes photos of them lowering the line deeper into the ocean.

Masira turns to his guests with a grin before he explains the process. "My men are bringing the hunter towards the sunken ship. Then when it gets into position we're going to blow air into it to hook it into the sunken ship, so it'll float it back up."

Nami widens her eyes at the explanation when she sees the monkey man grabbing the end of a giant air hose that's connected to the monkey statue. "That's crazy!"

Masira ignores her shock when he sees his crew ready to pull the line, so he blows air into the hose repeatedly as his men struggle to push the crane to pull the line.

He takes short breaks in between blows to catch his breath before he blows again. He continues to repeat the process until his men are able to start pushing the crane. "Boss, it's working!"

Masira smirks in satisfaction as he catches his breath. "Good, don't let up until the ship surfaces!"

"Yes sir!" The men wholeheartedly get to work on reeling it in when the crew member who's in charge of keeping an eye on the scuba diving team runs up to him with a tiny den den mushi. "Captain, something's wrong with the underwater crew!"

Masira raises an eyebrow at his distress when he takes the snail from his hands. "What's going on?!"

The small red snail looks up at his captain fearfully as he shouts out the problem. "SIR, THERE'S SOMEONE DOWN HERE! AAAH!"

Masira widens his eyes at the screams. Fury begins to well up in him as he stands up and gives the Straw Hats a triumphant pose while he roars. "RRAAAH! HOW DARE THEY ATTACK MY CREW?! WHEN I FIND THEM, I'LL KILL THEM!"

Most of the Straw Hats sweat drop at his dramatics as he stays in his pose, except for Rose who is taking a picture.

Once the wind girl has a good shot, she gives the monkey man a thumbs up. "Thanks for the great shot!"

The rest of the crew deadpans at her nonchalant attitude, so she looks at them in confusion. "What? He was posing."

Before they can say anything, more screams can be heard from the snail, and only works to fuel Masira's fury.

"That's it, I'm going down there and killing the bastard!" He jumps into the ocean to face Luffy and the others while both crews can only wait.

"What now?" Usopp whispers to Nami as he sees that Masira's men have stopped reeling in the ship to go to the railing and wait for their captain.

Nami looks down at the ocean worriedly before she turns to him. "We can-"

"Uh guys..." The pair stops talking to see Chopper trembling as he looks down at the ocean below them.

The crew follows his stare and they widen their eyes at a giant shadow appearing.

"W-what's that?" Usopp nervously asks as he joins Chopper in his trembling.

"Probably a hungry sea king." Robin morbidly says with a calm smile.

"Don't say that Robin!" Nami says when she sees Rose casually looking at the giant shadow with her camera in her hands. "And you, enough with the pictures!"

Rose quietly sighs in disappointment as she puts the camera back in her backpack just when the shadow surfaces beside the two ships to reveal a giant turtle.

Mostly everyone drops their jaws at the sight of the turtle, that's the size of an island, right next to them with bits of the sunken ship stuck in its teeth.

Robin only stares at the reptile for a moment before she sees that the three lines that connected the trio's barrel suits to their air machine are going into his mouth. "It looks like they were eaten."

"AAH! WHAT DO WE DO?!" Chopper yells as he runs around in a panic just before both ships start being pulled by the turtle.

"We're being pulled along with the air pipes!" Nami says as she hangs onto the railing so that she doesn't fall.

Usopp trembles at the sight of them getting closer to the turtle before he turns to Robin and Rose. "You guys are strong, do something!"

"It's too big." Robin casually says as she acts like they're not face to face with a sea monster.

Rose narrows her eyes at the turtle then looks down at her sword, that's hooked to her jacket's waist belt. "Maybe if I stab it in the face I can get it to open up."

"We're with you!" The crew looks to see that Masira's men are getting ready to fight the turtle.

"Give us the opening and we'll rescue the captain!"

"We'll teach them to mess with us!"

Rose nods as she starts flying when the sky suddenly becomes dark. Everyone stops and looks up in confusion to see that the sun is completely blocked off.

"What the hell?!" Nami asks as she goes in her pocket to grab her pocket watch. "It's nowhere near night time!"

"Then what's happening?!" Usopp asks as he looks at the turtle to see that it hasn't moved an inch.

When the crew hears various kinds of screams and nervous chatter from the monkey ship, they look in confusion to see that the salvage crew's in a panic.

"This is a bad omen!"

"We gotta get the captain and get out of here as soon as possible!"

Before any of the Straw Hats can react, something gets thrown out of the water. Everyone looks in shock to see an unconscious Luffy flying towards his ship with a giant, full sack on his back.

Just before he could hit the deck, Rose creates a gust of wind for him to float on.

She lands on the deck first before she gently lays his body down.

Chopper widens his eyes at this unconscious captain while he panicks. "Aah! Call a doctor!"

"You're the doctor!" Usopp says as he whacks him on the head.

"Oh yea." Chopper rushes over to him and places two fingers on his neck to find a pulse, and sees his chest rising and falling. He sighs in relief as he goes into brain point. "Looks like he's just unconscious."

The others sigh in relief when Zoro and Sanji climb onto the deck with their own large bags, full of the shipwreck's contents, tied to their backs.

Usopp smiles in relief as he goes up to them. "You guys are alright!"

Nami looks at the turtle, who's busy eating the shipwreck, before she turns to the others. "We should get out of here before the turtle wants seconds."

Zoro raises an eyebrow at her worries as he doesn't notice the turtle behind him. "What are you talking about? We should be getting out of here because of the monkey."

Sanji nods as he joins the conversation. "Yea, he was like a sea monster. He was really friendly with Luffy at first since we're both monkeys."

As Zoro and Sanji put their soaked bags down, the swordsman points to them. "Then when the monkey saw these sacks full of stuff, he went berserk."

Robin giggles at the story. "The monkey was Masira, he's the captain of the ship behind you. Was he eaten by the turtle?"

"I doubt it." Rose says as she cuts the air lines that the turtle is eating, and looks at the ocean to see the unconscious scuba divers that the boys knocked out, are floating in the ocean with their crew reeling them in.

"What's this turtle you're all talking about?" Sanji asks as he and Zoro turn around.

Once they see that giant turtle they both drop their jaws in shock. "WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!"

"You just noticed?!" Usopp and Chopper cry out in disbelief.

"Never mind that, we gotta go!" Nami says causing the crew to get ready to move the ship just when Luffy wakes up.

Luffy takes in his surroundings and looks up in shock to see that the sky's dark. "Whoa, is it night time already?!"

"We don't know what it is! Come help us move the ship!" Usopp says as he and Zoro release the sails.

Just when they're ready to leave, Masira practically flies out of the water with his fists in the air. "I WON'T LET YOU LEAVE HERE ALIVE!"

He lands on the Merry's railing with intent to kill every human on board. "You think you can just steal my treasure and sail away?!"

Nami brightens up at the mention of treasure before she turns to Luffy. "You guys got treasure?!"

"Yup, a whole bunch." Luffy says with a toothy smile when Zoro, Sanji, and Rose surround the ape.

However, before a fight could start, Masira's crew start screaming in fright as they look ahead. "BOSS, WE GOTTA RUN!"

Masira and the Straw Hats look at the trembling men in confusion before they follow their stares. Once they look ahead, they all widen their eyes in horror to see three shadow figures as tall as the sky before them with spears in their hands.

Even the turtle was terrified of the giants when they start moving, and they all scream in fright. "MONSTERS!"

Masira looks down in shock to see that he's starting to float on a gust of air and looks to see Rose grinning as she focuses her wind.

"Thanks for the pictures monkey man." She tosses him to his crew just when her crew mates rush to sail away before the monsters could touch them.

* * *

Once the crew finds that they're safe from harm under the clear blue sky, everyone except for Robin, lie down on the deck from pure exhaustion.

"That was nuts. What the hell was that thing?" Luffy asks, but no one's able to give her an answer.

Sanji sits up with his back to the railing, and grabs a lighter and cigarette from his pocket to start smoking. "This whole day has been insane."

Nami nods in agreement, as she sits up, and looks at the three large sacks that the trio brought up with them from the shipwreck. "At least something came out of it. What kind of treasure did you guys get?"

Luffy eagerly grins at the memory of what they got as he and Zoro pull out the contents to reveal rusted armor, swords, old dishes, and various other ancient items.

Rose looks over the goods when she sees an octopus clinging to a sheathed, sword full of rust. She takes the sword along with the octopus, so that she can work to pull it from the weapon with Usopp and Chopper.

As Luffy grabs the old suit of armor to put it on, Nami looks through the antiques to see that there's not a single navigation tool here that she can use.

The redhead twitches an eyebrow at all junk in front of her before her anger is turned towards the men who brought it. "This isn't treasure at all! There's not even a single clue on how we can get to Sky Island!"

"This was all that was in the wreck." Zoro says while Luffy walks around in the suit of armor as if he's a knight.

Sanji sighs in disappointment of not bringing anything useful to Nami. "It looked like the place was attacked. By what I'm not sure."

"If that was the case then we needed information. Whatever happened to them could happen to us!" Nami says as she glares down at the junk. "We need things like charters, diaries, compasses, not this trash!"

She stomps on the stuff angrily when she sees Luffy still playing around in the armor. She quickly turns to him while she gives him the calmest look she can make. "And what's that Luffy?"

"A suit of armor." Luffy says as if he's not in danger at the moment.

Nami slowly nods while she keeps a calm smile on her face as she reaches behind her to grab a dull, rusted, sword.

Luffy widens his eyes when he sees her about to swing at him, but before contact can be made, a gust of wind pushes him out of the way of the hit.

Nami however, couldn't pull back from her missed swing in time, and falls flat on her face. She twitches an eyebrow in irritation as she gets up. She looks to see Rose looking away from the group innocently as she holds onto the sword while Chopper and Usopp are trying to pull the octopus free from it.

She groans in frustration when Sanji goes up to her with a smile and a cute little seashell in his hands. "I still brought a shell for you."

"I don't want it!" Nami says as she walks away and goes up to the upper deck where Robin has been watching the scene this whole time.

"Having trouble?" Robin casually asks as she holds onto something behind her back.

The navigator can only sigh in frustration as she sits down next to the railing. "You don't know the half of it. I don't know where we can go next."

The archaeologist looks over to the astronomer, who overheard, to see that she shows no sign of suggesting her eternal pose. So to help, Robin takes an eternal pose, with the word 'Jaya' engraved at the top of it, from behind her back and shows it to Nami. "Maybe this will help."

Nami widens her eyes at the eternal pose as she examines it, to see that it's not pointing up. "How'd you get this?!"

"I stole it from the monkey's ship." Robin says before she raises an eyebrow at the trembling navigator who has her head down.

When Nami lifts her face, she shows the helpful woman the tears of joy that are streaming down her face. "You're the only one who understands me!"

Robin sweat drops at her overjoyed attitude as she sees that she's serious. "You've been through a lot, haven't you?"

The redhead nods as she looks at the eternal pose to see that it's meant for Jaya. "Jaya?"

"It must be where Masira's headquarters is."

Luffy, who overheard the conversation, takes off the armor as he looks up at them. "So we're heading to Jaya?"

"That's for you to decide! We need to get answers on how to go to Sky Island!" Nami says in agitation.

Luffy nods in agreement as he turns to the others. "Alright, we're heading to Jaya then Sky Island!"

Chopper, Rose and Usopp cheer in agreement as Sanji and Zoro get to work on sailing the ship.

Nami goes off to direct the ship to where they need to go to while Rose, Usopp, and Chopper finally manage to pry the octopus from the weapon.

"Go home now." Chopper says as he tosses the pink octopus over the railing and back into the ocean.

Rose looks down at the rusted sword in her hands, that Zoro took from the wreck, before she goes over to the swordsman who's working on the sails. "What were you planning on doing with this?"

"Keep it as a backup." Zoro says as he finishes his work and takes the weapon. Once he takes the sword out of the sheath, he flinches when he sees the blade shatter as soon as it's out in the air.

Rose snorts at the fail as she holds back from laughing. "S-sorry, maybe the others could work."

Zoro goes off to the pile of antiques to see if any swords can be used, while Rose goes to the front of the ship to see if the island's anywhere close.

Luffy takes his seat on the figurehead while he enjoys the warm breeze. "You guys think Jaya's a spring island?"

Chopper nods in agreement as he enjoys the warmth. "I think so." He looks up at the lovely sky to see three seagulls happily flying above them. "Even the birds are-"

He stops himself when all three birds were shot at and started free falling towards them.

"Oh shit!" Rose says as she blows wind from her hands to catch the birds and gently set them down.

The others look at the birds in shock as Chopper rushes below deck and comes back out with a first aid kit in hand.

Usopp looks around nervously to see that there's not a single ship around them. "Where did those shots come from?!"

Chopper takes a bullet out one of the dead birds and examines it. "It looks like it came from the front of the ship!"

Nami looks ahead to see an island that's so far ahead that it looks tiny to them. "Are you sure? Because there's no way that the shots could come from there."

"It's the truth!" Chopper says as he takes the rest of the bullets out of the dead birds.

"I believe him." Rose says with her bangs covering her anger filled eyes as she remembers who exactly made those shots in the manga. _*Blackbeard's crew is on the island…*_

She takes in a slow breath from her nose to keep herself calm enough to go below deck without any mood breezes coming out.

Robin raises an eyebrow at the retreat as she watches Rose speed walk inside without looking back. She sits down on the lounge chair and closes her eyes to create a pair of eyes on the wall of the girls' room. Once Robin can see the room, she nearly cancels the eyes when they start feeling dry from the hot wind that's blowing around from Rose's anger.

She could only see Rose taking her astronomy books out of her bag, before she had to cancel it out to rub her eyes.

Nami looks to see Robin rubbing her eyes, to get rid of the irritation, and goes up to her. "Are you ok Robin?"

Robin grins as she blinks a few times, to help them recover, before she turns to Nami. "I'm fine, I just had something in my eyes."

Nami blinks at the excuse, but she doesn't press on it as she gets back to leading the ship to Jaya.

Meanwhile, Rose finishes putting the books back in the bookshelf before she starts sweating. She looks around to see her mood breeze lightly moving some things around the room, but not strong enough to cause any damage. She takes a deep breath to calm herself down to stop the mood breeze then sighs. _*If I even catch a glimpse of Blackbeard and his fucking men, I don't know what I'd do...*_

She shakes her head of the thought as she decides that the best course of action would be to avoid Mock Town completely. She goes back outside to see that the ship has docked just outside the town, along with a bunch of other pirate ships.

She looks to see Sanji trying to go after Nami after she left with Zoro and Luffy, but Usopp and Chopper are clinging to his leg.

"Don't go, the ship could get attacked!" Usopp says as he and Chopper beg him to stay.

"Alright, alright, I'll stay. Now let go." Sanji says as the two of them do as they're told.

Sanji sighs as he dusts himself off and goes in his pocket for a cigarette when he sees Rose flying off the deck. "Where are you going?"

Rose grins back at them as she points to the woods that's past the town. "I saw a forest at the other side of the island. I'm gonna go train there and maybe find a pet bird."

The three of them just stare at her in disbelief, which causes her to look at them in confusion. "What? Birds are cool."

She doesn't give them a chance to argue as she flies off the ship, ignores the stares she's receiving from civilians, and heads to the uninhabited part of the island.

* * *

Hours have passed since Rose has reached the forest, and she's flying around every tree to see if she can find the bird that can only point south.

She continues to fly through the woods until she starts hearing a loud buzzing sound. She stops moving forward, but stays floating when she hears the sound getting louder. She looks around to see what it is and widens her eyes when she sees a praying mantis, that's just as big as she is, flying towards her.

"Whoa!" She lands on the ground to dodge the attack, but the bug joins her as he lands in front of her while he swipes his forelegs as a taunt.

Rose blinks at the challenge before she unsheathes her sword with a smirk. "If you want a go at me, then let's play."

The mantis doesn't hesitate as he takes a swing at her, but she jumps backwards and strikes back.

The bug smirks as he dodges the blow with two of them exchanging blows. The bug doesn't give in as he goes for the limbs with half of them shallowly landing on her arms and legs, and the rest going through her.

When Rose manages to land some hits on the mantis with her sword, she sees the blade just barely cutting into his forelegs. When their strikes collide at full force, they push each other a few feet back.

Even though Rose is lightly panting from exhaustion, she can't suppress the chuckle that erupted from the fun she's having. "You're like a bug version of a martial artist."

The mantis only smirks at the compliment as he swipes at her, but she blocks the blow with the sword and goes back at him. As the two of them continue fighting in the lush forest, they disregard the bushes and trees that they're hitting, which causes the pollen to scatter out into the air.

When Rose accidentally breathes in some of the pollen, her nose starts to twitch. She tries to fight the upcoming sneeze that's coming as she continues her battle. However, she could only hold on for a few minutes before her sneeze sends both her and the mantis flying in opposite directions.

The bug manages to use his legs to ricochet himself off the tree and catch himself while Rose hits her back against the tree. Rose quickly gets back on her feet while she ignores the pain in her back, but what neither warriors knew was that they both hit trees that held giant beehives.

Rose and the mantis look behind each other in horror to see swarms of angry bees, half the size of them, coming out of both hives. The warriors look back at each other and nod to continue their battle for another time before they run for their lives in different directions.

Rose sheathes her sword and uses her wind to start flying, but the bees are hot on her trail. She looks back to see the swarm not giving in, so she starts turning her right arm into wind. "Taste this, you damn beedrills!"

The bees widen their eyes, when they see Rose turn around with her arm as a strong gust of wind that sends them flying into the trees. Rose smirks in victory of losing the monster bugs as she's flying backwards, but once she turns around she's met with branches as she crashes into a treetop. She grunts at the crash as she staggers out of the tree and lands on the ground.

She leans against a tree to catch her breath when she suddenly hears a deep bird call from above. She quickly looks up to see a toucan-like bird, with two knobs on top of his head, perched on one of the treetops with his long beak pointing south.

She uses her wind to pick the bird up, and makes it look down at her in shock as she brings it towards her. In order to escape, the bird flaps his wings to fly out of the hold and takes to the sun-setting sky.

Rose widens her eyes at the escape before she goes inside her backpack to grab her blanket and goes after the bird. "Come back!"

The toucan doesn't listen to her as he makes a call for the bugs to come swarming towards them. Rose uses her wind to send them flying back into the woods and looks to see the bird gaining some distance.

She twitches an eyebrow as she flies faster to catch up to the bird as she starts unfolding the blanket. Once she's just a few feet away, she puts another wind hold on the bird to slow it down long enough to throw an edge of the blanket over it.

The bird has no idea on what is happening as he tries to descend to get away, but the wind under him keeps him in place as Rose pulls the edges to trap the bird inside.

Rose keeps a hold of the makeshift sack, that's holding the thrashing bird, with both hands as she flies above the trees. She starts looking for the Merry from above when the bird starts pecking its dull beak for freedom, but the sheet's too thick. The bird still refuses to give up as he pushes in every direction for a chance to escape, so Rose flies down to a tree.

When she reaches a thick tree, lightly swings the sack to whack the tree with it. "Knock it off! I promise you'll be free soon! We just need your help for a bit!"

The bird groans from the hit, but he doesn't thrash as hard as he used to as Rose flies towards the orange sky. Rose looks towards the horizon where the sun is setting and sees a tiny ship by the coastline near the woods. _*Good, they made it past the bar fight with Bellamy.*_

She grins at how things are running smoothly as she goes off in the direction of the ship.

Just when the sun has finished setting Rose manages to reach the coast where the Merry is docked.

She scans the area for her crew, but she only sees Masira, another monkey man, and their workers doing construction on the Merry. She keeps looking, but stops when she sees a house with a cardboard cutout of a large castle blocking it from the ocean view.

She flies over the building and blinks when she sees the there's only half a building there with the cutout covering the hole up. _*Wow, the knock up stream really did a number on this place.*_

"Hey, who are you?" Rose snaps out of it to see a muscular, shirtless, man with his short blond hair covered by a large chestnut on his head looking up at her in confusion.

Rose descends to the middle-aged man and bows her head. "Sorry for the intrusion, my name's Rose."

The big man widens his eyes at the introduction before he chuckles. "So you're the wind girl. The name's Cricket, your crew mates told me about you. We're helping your ship get ready for Sky Island."

Rose grins at the introduction as she straightens up, but looks around to see that her crew's nowhere to be found. "And where's the crew?"

Cricket points to the forest that she just came from. "Sorry, but you just missed them. They went off into the woods to catch a south bird."

Rose drops her jaw at the man before she shows him her makeshift sack. "Are you serious?! I have one in here!"

Cricket can only gape in shock as he watches her fly back into the woods with her captured bird still in her arms. "GUYS, COME BACK! I ALREADY GOT US THE FREAKING BIRD!"

TO BE CONTINUED


	27. Chapter 27

Half an hour before Rose arrived at the coast with the south bird, the Straw Hats were in Cricket's house enjoying Sanji's cooking with the salvage crews before they start preparing Merry for the knock up stream.

Masira and his fellow salvage captain, a man who looks just like an orangutan with long green hair, have a drink while their men enjoy their dinner to the fullest.

Cricket happily shows off some pieces of gold to the Straw Hats to show proof that the Sky Island holds the city of gold.

Usopp tilts his head at the tiny golden bell statue. "I thought Roland's log said that they were gigantic?"

Cricket nods as he pats the artifact. "These are just tokens that we found on the seafloor."

Nami couldn't stop the love in her eyes for the gold bell in front of her. "So there really is a whole city made of gold?!"

Cricket takes a swig from his bottle of liquor before he grins at her. "Not only that, but there are even strange birds on the island." He turns to Masira and points to the bookcase. "Masira, show them."

"Ok." He goes to the bookshelf where a lump that's wrapped in a white cloth is being held.

He takes the lump, and removes the sheet to show them the golden statue of a south bird holding a bell.

Nami's eyes turn into beli signs at the sight of the beautiful treasure. "That's even bigger than the bell!"

"That's so cool!" Usopp says as he looks it over. "What kind of bird is it?"

Sanji looks over the statue curiously. "It must be Jaya's-" He stops himself when he sees his captain about to grab the untouched plate of food on the counter.

He twitches a curly eyebrow at his captain's antics, and kicks him in the face to keep him away from the meal. "That's not for you! That's for Rose!"

Luffy steps back and rubs his aching head before he looks out the window to see no sign of her out there. "Hasn't she been gone for a while?"

Robin shrugs as she looks over Roland's log for more clues on Sky Island. "Wind-chan can find the ship while she's flying, so we shouldn't worry."

Chopper follows his captain's gaze out into the evening sky. "She mentioned finding a pet bird. Maybe she's searching for one right now."

The orangutan man knits his eyebrows at the feeling that he's forgotten something as he looks at the bird statue. However, it only takes a few seconds before it clicks and he drops his jaw in shock. "DAMMIT!"

Masira looks at his brother in confusion. "What's up, Shoujou?"

"We forgot to tell them about the south bird!"

It's now the Straw Hats' turn to be confused as Cricket realizes what he's talking about, and frantically shows them the statue. "He's right! This is what a south bird looks like! You guys need to go to the woods and capture one!"

Zoro finishes his alcohol before he raises an eyebrow at the statue. "What's the big deal about this bird?"

Masira quickly scrambles through the closet to grab seven giant butterfly nets. "The bird's beak can only point south, and the knock up stream is directly south from here! You guys need that bird to guide you on the Grand Line or you won't make it there in time!"

The crew widens their eyes at the announcement when Masira throws the nets at them. They clumsily catch the nets before they start running out of the house.

Luffy stays behind when he reaches the door and turns to Cricket. "If Rose comes here, tell her we'll be right back."

Cricket nods as he watches his guests run off into the woods. Once they're gone, he turns to Masira and Shoujou along with his men with a smirk. "Well, what are you all waiting for? Let's get to work on preparing their ship for Sky Island!"

His men cheer in agreement as they run off to prepare the Going Merry for her upcoming journey, without knowledge that the Bellamy pirates are on their way to their coast.

* * *

At the moment, the crew has gotten deep enough into the woods to split into three groups in hope of finding the south bird.

Luffy and Chopper are in their own team, as they search the dark woods for the south bird.

The rubber man continues searching until he sees something shaking in a bush. He blinks in confusion as he looks in the shrub and widens his eyes at what he finds. He picks it up with stars in his eyes before he turns to Chopper. "I found it!"

Chopper turns in excitement at the thought of him catching the bird, but his excitement changes to confusion as he looks to see him holding a bug in his hand.

Luffy doesn't notice his confusion as he shows him the struggling beetle in his hand. "Look, it's an Atalasu!"

The reindeer can only blink at his captain's enthusiasm as he stares at the insect. "Atalasu?"

"Yea, these beetles are awesome!"

Chopper tilts his head in confusion before he asks him a question. "Which would you choose then? The beetle or the One Piece?"

Luffy freezes at the choice before he starts thinking hard on the answer. "Ugh, it's hard to decide…"

"GUYS, COME BACK! I ALREADY GOT US THE FREAKING BIRD!" The boys freeze when they hear Rose's voice in the distance, but they don't see her anywhere.

"ROSE, WHERE ARE YOU?!" Luffy calls out, and fails to notice that his shouting is attracting enemies.

The duo looks around in confusion when they hear the sound of buzzing to their left and see a group of huge pray mantises coming after them.

The pair quickly dodges one of the larger bugs' attacks and looks back to see that he's about to swipe again. However, before he could strike, a freckled girl falls from the sky and stomps on the bug's back.

The pirates and insects stop everything they're doing when Rose gets off the unconscious mantis.

Rose takes a look at the bug and tilts her head when she sees that it's the mantis that she fought with this afternoon. "So that's where you were. Sorry for the rough landing."

She sees Luffy and Chopper staring at her with wide eyes, and waves at them with one hand while her other hand is carrying the sack, that's holding the bird, over her shoulder. "Hey guys."

The boys were about to say something when they heard a deep bird call above them. The pirates look up in shock to see that another south bird is perched up in the tree and is calling out for the bugs to attack.

The mantises and the spiders, that were residing in the trees, respond to the call and charge at the pirates.

The trio wastes no time in running away from the swarms, as they jump around to avoid the charging mantises and flying blobs of webs that the spiders are shooting at them.

"What the hell's up with this forest?!" Luffy asks as he jumps to the side to avoid another mantis from attacking him.

"Your guess is as good as mine!" Rose says as she blows wind out of her hand to send them flying back, but they keep coming back.

Chopper goes into walking point to run along with the others when he hears the bird's angry calls. "Huh?"

He listens to the calls to understand what he's saying and drops his jaw when he hears the same kind of sounds from Rose's bag. "You found a south bird Rose?!"

She nods with a grin as she tilts her head towards the sack. "I found this guy when I was training, but when I found the ship the guy with the walnut hat said you were out here searching for him. What are they saying?"

"The one in your blanket's saying that 'this crazy witch kidnapped me and wants to eat me'. The one in the tree got pissed and told us that 'if we don't release his friend then we'll be killed!'"

"No way!" Luffy says as he turns around, stretches his arm back and throws a punch at the bird, but the bird stays in his spot to make another call, so that a flying cricket takes the blow.

Chopper widens his eyes at the block as they keep running. "HE CAN COMMAND THE BUGS?!"

"We'd better get out of here!" Rose says as she creates a gust of wind around their feet and lifts the three of them to the sky.

The free south bird and bugs look at the flying pirates in shock before the crickets and mantises go after them.

Luffy turns around to see the pursuing insects and pulls his arms back. "GUM GUM GATLING!" He punches out every bug that's after them with enough force to knock them out.

Chopper grins in relief, when he sees the unconscious insects falling into the woods, before he looks down at the treetops. "That was close."

"I'll say." Rose says as she lowers them into a different part of the woods, but still keeps them floating a few feet in the air. "You guys know where the others are?"

Luffy shakes his head at the question. "No, we've split up to look for the bird." He looks at the makeshift sack Rose is carrying over her shoulder with curiosity. "Did you really catch one?"

Rose nods when the bird starts thrashing around in the blanket again, so she holds onto the edges tightly to keep him from escaping. "Y-yea, and it wasn't easy either. I had to chase this guy across the sky before I finally got him. Let's go find the others."

The boys silently agree as Rose flies them throughout the forest to resume in their search for their friends.

* * *

Nami and Usopp are completely shaken from witnessing at least five bugs that are the same size as them. Every time they spot a giant fly, a swarm of mosquitoes or even a large moth, they scream in fright as they run away with the chef.

Sanji wastes no time in protecting the group whenever a bug approaches, but they haven't seen a single sign of their target all night. "Dammit, where the hell is this stupid bird?!"

"How should I know?!" Usopp says when they reach the bottom of a hill. Once he looks up at the hill, he widens his eyes in horror when he sees no birds, but large pill bugs curled into balls, and rolling towards them.

He and Nami scream in fright of the roly polies their way. Sanji however, wastes no time to pick Nami up bridal style and jump onto the branches to get out of the way.

"WHAT ABOUT ME?!" Usopp yells as he runs up to a tree as fast as he can and climbs up to narrowly avoid the rolling bugs' attack.

"You made it didn't you? What's the big deal?" Sanji asks as he jumps off the tree with the navigator still in his arms. He gently sets the beautiful girl down as he gives her a gentlemanly smile. "Are you alright Nami?"

Nami nods in assurance as she brushes herself off and looks around. "I'm fine, but we haven't found the bird."

They hear a deep bird call and look up to see that a south bird is perched right above them.

Sanji twitches an eyebrow at the bird as he grips the butterfly net in his hands. "There you are, you-"

He stops himself when he hears Nami screaming and looks to see that a huge light brown slug is crawling towards them.

"Throw some salt on it!" Nami says as she rushes in her bag to see if she has any, but she doesn't have a single grain.

Usopp grabs a ball, that's entirely made of salt, from his bag before he loads it into his slingshot. "Sanji, cover me!"

"Alright!" Sanji says as Usopp fires his salt star with Sanji following in to kick the slug into next week.

As the boys are fighting the overgrown slug, Nami runs over to the bird's tree and swings her net towards him. However, before she can catch him, he flew off the tree to the one that was behind her.

The navigator twitches an eyebrow at the bird's taunting as she runs towards the new tree. "Come here, you stupid bird!"

The south bird doesn't show any fear for Nami's fury as he flies up to avoid her net. However, as soon as he goes above the trees, he's met with a strong gust of wind that slams him to the ground.

Sanji, Usopp and the slug stop fighting and join Nami's look of shock when they see Rose, Luffy and Chopper landing in front of them.

The navigator snaps out of it when she gets back to her task, but when she goes to where the bird hit the ground, she sees that he already flew into the trees to escape.

She groans in frustration of losing the bird as she turns to the newly arrived trio. "Why didn't you put him in a hold with your wind Rose?! And where have you been?!"

The wind girl casually shrugs as she turns around to show her the bag on her shoulder. "First, I was training around here and looking for a pet bird. Second, I didn't see a point in catching him since I have a south bird in here."

Sanji, Usopp and Nami freeze at the explanation before Nami walks up to her with a large smile. "In that case, great job!"

Usopp smiles in relief of not having to deal with this scary forest anymore. "Then let's go find Zoro and Robin and-"

He stops himself when an unconscious beetle, that's as tall as he is, soars right past him, crashes head first onto a tree trunk, and slumps onto the ground.

Everyone looks to where he flew from and sees that Zoro's the culprit as he approaches them with Robin following behind.

"You almost hit me with that!" Usopp angrily says but Zoro only shrugs in response with a muttered apology.

Robin looks around and stops when she sees the green sack that Rose is carrying. "Is a south bird in there?"

Luffy nods with a large grin. "Yea, Rose caught him before she made it to the ship."

The archaeologist raises an eyebrow at the explanation before she turns to Rose. "How did you know that we needed a south bird?"

The others blink at the question, and realize that none of them mentioned needing a south bird before she left, so they turn their eyes to the brunette who stiffens at the question.

Rose looks around at the eyes that are on her, before she covers her anxiety with a chuckle and a shrug. "Who said I did? I already told the boys I was looking for a pet bird. Guess I was lucky enough to find the one you're looking for."

The crew only sweat drops at the explanation full of half-truths as they watch her turn away from them.

She doesn't give them another word on the subject as she walks off to the direction of the ship. "We should get out of here before another bug tries to free this guy."

The others watch her walk away for a moment before they drop the subject and catch up to her to get out of the forest.

Once they managed to escape the bug filled forest and back to the coastline, the crew was met with the horrific sight of Cricket and his men lying all over the place with cuts and bruises all over their bodies.

"Diamond head!" Luffy says as he and Zoro rush over to him to see that he's unconscious.

Nami and Robin go off to Cricket's house to assess the damage while the others rush to the injured men.

Rose starts going towards Luffy's group, but she stops and pales when she sees that the front half of the Merry was split off the ship and the mast has been bent down near the base. "Oh my god…"

"MERRY!" Usopp yells out as he's ready to cry from the sight of the ship's damage.

"Sorry… We tried to protect it, but we couldn't. There's still time to repair it." Cricket says as he starts regaining consciousness while Luffy sits him up with his back to a tree.

"Tell me who did this!" Luffy says, but the middle-aged man shakes his head at the concern as wipes the blood off his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Don't worry about it. All that matter is that we get you guys ready for the knock up stream."

"Luffy!" The captain turns to Nami's voice to see her running out of the house. "The gold was taken!"

The Straw Hats look at her in shock, but Cricket only shrugs it off as he slowly stands up.

He dusts himself off, as if it's no big thing, before he tries to reassure the kids. "It doesn't matter guys."

"Doesn't matter?!" Usopp asks as he approaches him. "You and your crew spent years to find that gold! You can't just disregard that!"

"Shut up and listen to me!" Cricket says as he looks towards the broken Merry. "Both Masira and Shoujou's crews are more than capable of fixing the ship and having it ready by dawn. No matter what, I need to send you guys to the sky. Therefore, you should-"

"Luffy." Zoro cuts Cricket off and points to a painting of a smiling face with a slash smearing over the face.

Nami widens her eyes at the symbol when she remembers seeing it in Mock Town. "That's Bellamy's symbol!"

Luffy clenches his fists at the symbol as he turns to Robin. "If I run along the beach then I can make it to the town we were in, right?"

Robin nods at the question. "Yes, you should."

Zoro knows exactly what his captain is planning, so he walks up to him. "Want any help?"

Luffy shakes his head as he starts heading to the direction of the town. "I'm fine, I'll be right back."

Cricket widens his eyes at the comment when he sees him walking away. "Hey, mind your own business! I already said-!"

Zoro stops him by showing him his sword. "If you want to stop him, you're gonna need this."

Cricket freezes at the offer, since he knows that he can't use it against him, as Rose goes towards Luffy. "I can get you to the town faster if you want."

He shakes his head at the offer as he cracks his knuckles. "I'm fine, I can make it back before dawn."

The wind girl nods, in understanding of him wanting to take care of it on his own, and stays behind with the rest of the crew while Luffy goes off to kick Bellamy's ass.

"I can't believe he stormed off like that…" Masira says as he gets up.

Cricket snaps out of his daze and turns to his men who are able to get up. "What are you all sitting around for?! Let's get the ship ready!"

The ones who were able to stand, including Masira and Shoujou, cheer in agreement as they get to work.

Chopper gets to work on treating the injuries for those who couldn't work while the Straw Hats help out in any way they can.

When Rose sees Masira speaking to his scuba diving team, she goes over to the gorilla man. "Hey Masira, can I ask you for a favor?"

Masira looks at her in confusion before he nods. "Go right ahead."

"Is it possible to reinforce the keel of the ship with as much support as possible?" Rose asks as she points to the back of the ship where the backbone of the boat starts.

The salvage captain looks at the ship, that's having the front of the boat being pushed back to the rest of the body, in thought before he nods in agreement. "I think I know what you're talking about. I'll get my scuba diving team to do what they can."

Rose smiles at the assurance before she bows her head. "Thank for very much monkey man."

Masira broadly grins at the compliment as he watches her fly over to the ship.

She goes onto the deck and floats to Sanji with the sack. "Do you know where we can secure this guy?"

"I can take care of him for you Rose-chan." Sanji says as he takes the bird and brings him to the upper deck to chain his ankle to the railing.

Rose looks at the front of the ship to see the men still working to push it back in place, so she flies over to the front of the figurehead. She grabs onto the neck of the figurehead, and blasts as much wind as she could out of her feet behind her to help the push the front of the ship back to where it belongs.

As Rose strains herself, she sadly looks up at the figurehead, for she feels responsible for the ship's condition, because she forgot about the extent of the damage Merry would receive from Bellamy's crew. While she knows that this would happen even if she wasn't in this world, the guilt for not stopping this when she had the chance builds up inside her as she whispers to Merry. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have left…"

The wind girl is only answered with silence as she and the dozens of men below her bring the front of the boat close enough to the rest of the body for it to be patched up.

Masira and Shoujou's crews work nonstop to patch the ship up with brass plating to keep the ship stable. Once they've repaired the ship, they returned to their duty for preparing the ship for the sky by attaching wings, a chicken's tail, a rooster cowl, and even a broken eggshell around the Merry's neck.

Once they were finished they and the rest of the Straw Hats go back to the coastline to get a good look at the fully equipped ship.

Shoujou widely grins in satisfaction of the new design of the ship. "This will help your ship soar through the air with no problem, once the knock up stream hits!"

Chopper and Usopp look at the bird like boat with stars in their eyes. "This looks so cool!"

Robin sweat drops at the rooster decorations that she stares at from the coastline. "Why model it after a bird that can't fly?"

Rose shrugs as she looks at the south bird she caught, that has his foot chained to the upper rail. "Your guess is as good as mine, but it does look pretty cool."

She takes off her backpack, reaches into it to grab her camera, and takes a few photos of Merry's new look.

The archaeologist raises an eyebrow at the picture taking as she watches Rose place the camera back in her bag, without making the eternal pose visible. "You seem to really enjoy taking photos."

The astronomer hums at the comment as she slings the bag onto her shoulder. "I find that it's better to capture the moment. It helps to remember the adventure."

She freezes when she realizes that she's forgotten something and goes into her jacket pocket. "Speaking of forgetting, I have something for you."

Robin tilts her head at the statement when Rose takes the folded piece of paper, that was used to make the fake note for her, out of her pocket and hands it to her.

The archaeologist blinks at the returned paper as she watches the wind girl walk off to sit cross legged on a tree stump and look up at the fading night sky. She unfolds the paper to see that her note is still placed on it, but there's also another message written at the bottom of the page.

 **I don't mind harmless pranks, but if you have a problem with me then I'd rather we talk about it face to face.**

Rose

Robin widens her blue eyes at the message before she looks to see that the wind girl is relaxing on the stump, as if she didn't just leave her an invitation to talk. She remains silent as she stuffs her paper in her pocket and goes over to Nami to wait for the captain with her.

Rose looks back to see Robin casually chatting with Nami, and starts to relax when she knows that she's not going to talk to her yet. She doesn't want to continue to deal with Robin's questions like in the forest, so she hopes that talking it out in with the archaeologist could ward off her curiosity.

In the meantime, she's going to have to try being more discreet when she's using her knowledge.

The brunette quietly sighs at the plan, as she looks up to see that the sun is starting to rise. When she sees that it's already dawn, she looks over to Sanji in confusion. "Hey Sanji, Luffy had to be back by sunrise, right?"

Sanji nods as he looks to the coastline to see his captain still didn't show up. "Yup, he's late…"

Nami groans in frustration of Luffy's lateness. "Where the hell is he?! We starting to get behind schedule!"

"Do you think he was beaten in town?" Chopper asks.

That question only infuriates Nami more as she remembers how he wouldn't fight back against Bellamy in Mock Town. "If he lost then I won't forgive him!"

Zoro sweat drops at Nami's irritation when a loud voice starts ringing in the air.

"HEY GUYS!" Everyone looks to see the rubber man coming into view as he runs along the beach with a large sack full of gold hanging over his shoulder.

Cricket grins in relief that he made it before it was too late. "About time you made it."

Luffy ignores the comment as he approaches them, and drops his jaw at the ship's new bird like appearance. "Is that the Merry?!"

Usopp nods with a proud smirk as he raises his hand to the ship. "You got that right! Feast your eyes on the Merry's flying mode! With these adjustments she's going to be able to soar in the sky just like a bird!"

"That's awesome!" Luffy says in excitement as he starts having stars in his eyes.

Nami walks over to the ship and calls to the crew. "If we're going to do this then we have to go now! Hurry up!"

The others quickly follow suit and get on board to prepare the ship for departure.

Luffy however, didn't get on yet, but goes over to Cricket to drop the bag of gold in front of his feet. "Thanks for fixing the ship!"

The older man only sighs, as he smokes his cigarette, and points his thumb to Masira and Shojou's ships that are now being boarded by both crews. "If you want to thank someone then thank those guys."

Luffy nods as he waves to the monkey ships. "Right, thanks guys!"

"We don't have time for thanks! Get on your ship!" Masira calls out from his ship.

Shoujou makes it onto his boat that looks similar to an orangutan before he calls out to Luffy. "We'll escort your crew to the knock up stream so hurry up!"

"Right!" Luffy runs off to the Merry and leaves Cricket with the returned treasure.

Cricket looks over the gold, that he spent years collecting with his ape crews in order to prove that Sky Island truly does exist, before he drops his cigarette and steps on it. He turns to the boats that are starting to leave the island before he yells out to them. "APE CREWS!"

Both monkey crews look over to their leader as he shouts his orders to them. "DON'T MESS THIS UP! MAKE SURE THAT THEY GET THERE!"

Both crews chant in agreement as Luffy makes it aboard the ship and begins to follow the monkey crews.

Cricket gives one last call out for the Straw Hats as they start sailing. "THANKS FOR THE GOLD! DON'T GO CRASHING INTO ANYTHING!"

Luffy chuckles at the gratitude as he calls out to him. "SURE! SEE YA!"

The others were eager to wave him off as they sail away from the island with the monkey ships as their escorts.

Once the ship's far away, Rose doesn't waste any time to go into the kitchen. After a moment, she comes out with a box of rice crackers in her hand and goes to the upper deck where the south bird is perched on the upper railing.

She walks up next to the toucan like bird and dangles a cracker right in front of his beak. "Here you go."

The south bird twitches an eye at being treated like a pet before a sinister idea comes to mind. He smirks at the cracker before he opens his beak as wide as possible.

Before the wind girl can react, he chomps down on both the rice cracker along with her gloved hand. The joke is on him though, because the only thing he could taste in his mouth was the snack.

"Oh my god, look what you did?!"

He hums in confusion at the terror in the girl's voice as he finishes the cracker before she holds her arm in front of him without a hand in sight.

His eyes bug out in horror of the girl's missing hand, as he screams in fright, and almost jumps off the railing, but the chain wouldn't let him.

Rose couldn't contain her laughter as she turns her airy hand back to normal. The bird looks at the hand in utter shock as she cheekily grins at him while she wiggles her fingers in front of him. "I hope you learned a lesson in trying to bite me."

The bird slowly nods as he catches his breath from the fright. She offers another cracker as a peace offering which he quickly takes while he's careful of her long fingers.

Chopper, Usopp, and Luffy run over to the railing, after they heard the bird's screams, to see him eating while Rose is relaxing by the railing.

"What happened with the bird?!" Chopper asks as they approach them.

Rose chuckles at the prank she made on the bird, before she gives the doctor a reassuring smile. "No worries, we just had a falling out. It's alright now. You guys want some crackers?"

Luffy happily smiles at the offer as he takes a cracker from the box. "Thanks!"

She nods to his gratitude as she offers Usopp and Chopper a piece.

Meanwhile, Luffy goes over to the bird and turns his head to the right. However, once he releases the head, it immediately turns back to its original position.

Luffy chuckles at how the beak immediately pointed south. "He really does stay south."

Usopp looks at the multi-colored bird curiously as he finishes his snack. "I can't believe birds like this exist."

The south bird starts speaking in irritation while Chopper listens carefully.

"What's he saying?" Rose asks when the bird finishes ranting.

"He says 'I'm going to turn away from south to get you guys lost!'"

"Go ahead and try!" Luffy says as he's interested to see if he can do it.

The bird takes on the challenge as he turns his head in the opposite direction of where he was before.

"He pointed north!" Chopper says with interest as they all curiously stare to see how long he can last.

The bird works hard to keep his head from pointing south as long as possible, but after a minute his head snaps back to south.

The boys laugh in amusement of the attempt while the bird gets pissed at all their laughing.

Rose quietly sighs as she offers him the last cracker as an apology, which he takes, before she heads to the front deck.

"Wind-chan."

The wind girl freezes at the nickname, and looks to the right see Robin casually grinning at her as she holds the piece of paper holding the note up to show that she wants to talk. Rose nods in agreement as she follows the archaeologist below deck, so that they can speak alone in the girls' room.

Once they've shut the door behind them, Rose quietly sighs as she scratches the back of her head. "Sorry if the note sounded rude. You just don't seem like the type to play tricks on people, so I was wondering if something was wrong."

Robin keeps a calm grin on her face as she takes a seat on the bed. "Not at all, I was just curious to see how you'd act."

Rose raises an eyebrow at the explanation. "How I'd act?"

Robin nods as she explains further. "When I join a new crew, I prefer to get to know my crew mates. From what I've seen so far, I've come to believe that out of everyone in the crew, you and I are the most alike."

The astronomer stiffens up at the comment, but she hides her tension in an indifferent poker face. "You think so?"

The archaeologist keeps an amused look on her face as she rests her head on the palm of her hand. "I do. While you do enjoy fighting out in the open, I see you're the type that would handle problems from behind the scenes. Just as how I normally work, at least that's what I've come to believe."

Rose slightly widens her eyes at the analysis, for she knows that she's entirely right about her, but keeps appearing indifferent to it as she keeps listening. "When I played that trick, I just wanted to see how you'd act if you thought you were alone on the ship. Nothing more and nothing less."

She giggles at the memory of expecting her to steal the ship, but instead gives Merry her own private show. "I didn't expect you to perform for the ship though. You were pretty entertaining."

Rose grins at the compliment and hides her relief in that it doesn't look like her secret was figured out yet. "Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed the show. I'm not sure if I'm like you in the whole handling things behind the scenes part, but you're right about me enjoying a good fight."

Robin chuckles at her intent to keep a few sides of her personality covered, just as how she always does with others. "If you say so. By the way, I appreciate that you didn't tell the others about this, and I'm sorry if I worried you."

Rose shakes her head before she gives her a reassuring smile. "Not at all, I'm just happy this wasn't anything serious."

She looks out the window to see that a storm is starting to approach them. "I think we're getting closer to the knock up stream."

Robin follows her gaze out the window and then starts heading out the door. "In that case, we should go join the others."

"Right." Rose follows her out of the room while she keeps on a small grin from knowing that Robin hasn't revealed her secret. However, because of her accurate findings on her personality, she knows for certain that she can't tell her a single piece of her research or else it'll be practically telling her the truth.

Once they reach the deck, they were met with the whole crew looking at the giant storm cloud that's approaching them.

"What kind of storm cloud is that?" Sanji asks Nami who's staring at the storm in horror.

"That's a millennium cumulonimbus…" Nami says when Masira calls out to them.

"GUYS, TURN THE SHIP TO TEN O'CLOCK! YOU'RE GONNA GO WITH THE FLOW OF THE WAVES!"

The crew works to move to the instructed direction just when the storm begins to hit.

Both Masira and Shoujou's ships were hit by a few waves, but they were able to handle to storm. However, because of the direction that the Straw Hats took, they were dragged through the waves until they find themselves following the current to a giant whirlpool.

"YOU NEED TO FOLLOW THE CURRENT TO THE CENTER OF THE WHIRLPOOL!" Shoujou yells out.

Almost all of the Straw Hats freeze at the command before yell out in shock."WHAT?!"

"WE CAN'T DO THAT!" Nami yells out, but she knows that it's far too late for them to turn back now as the whirlpool begins to swallow them.

Rose hangs onto the railing while carrying a large smile from the excitement. "This is awesome!"

"NO, IT'S NOT!" Usopp yells before he turns to Luffy. "Luffy, we gotta turn back! This whirlpool is too deadly!"

Luffy looks away from the whirlpool with a toothy grin on his face. "Sorry, did you say something?"

Usopp tears up at his oblivious captain along with Nami as they share the same thought. _*We're gonna die here…*_

Zoro turns to Usopp before he points ahead. "Hey, look what happened while you were complaining."

He looks at the swordsman in confusion before they look out to see that the ship managed to fly over the edge of the whirlpool towards the center.

Half of them scream in fright, but before the boat could fall, the whirlpool immediately fades off and leaves the ship floating on the calm ocean.

Rose blinks at the anticlimactic development before she lets go of the railing, and looks at the water. "What just happened?"

Sanji looks up confusion to see that the dark clouds are still high above them, but with no other signs of the dangerous storm that they dealt with. "Did that whirlpool just disappear?"

Nami rushes over to the railing and looks down at the sea in horror to see that the whirlpool truly did disappear, but something else is starting to stir below them.

"HOLD IT, YOU BRATS!" The crew freezes at the masculine voice from the distance and turns to see a large raft, that consists of four gigantic trees tied together, sailing towards them.

What really caught their attention though, were the three black sails vertically aligned with the middle one holding three skulls with the same amount of bones crossing over them.

"Who the hell are these guys?" Sanji asks as he narrows his eyes at them.

Nami looks over the crew and immediately recognizes the burly man with thick black hair falling to his neck. "We met that guy in Mock Town yesterday."

Rose freezes at the sight of the fat, dark skinned man with his big mouth showing off his broken and missing teeth in his mouth, before fury begins to well up inside her. _*Blackbeard…*_

She tightens her fists as tightly as possible, as she glares at the enemy crew, while hot air begins to flow out of her. With the Straw Hats around she knows that she can't openly do anything to the traitor without raising questions, even though she really wants to. However, a good indirect attack can't hurt her.

She looks up at the crow's nest and sees a good opportunity to make her move up there. She grabs a bucket of paint and starts flying up to the crow's nest while the others are distracted.

"WE'RE HERE FOR THE HUNDRED MILLION BOUNTY'S HEAD!" Blackbeard calls out, but the Straw Hats only look at the man in confusion.

"What do you mean 100 million bounty?" Luffy asks as he approaches the railing.

Blackbeard raises an eyebrow at the captain's question. "You guys don't know?" He goes into his pockets, and takes out two bounty posters with a picture of Zoro and Luffy respectively. "Straw Hat has a bounty of 100 million beli and Pirate Hunter Zoro has a 60 million bounty too!"

Usopp grabs his binoculars from his bag, and gets a better look at the posters he's holding to see that he's telling the truth. "He's right! You're a wanted pirate now Zoro!"

Luffy immediately brightens up at the announcement. "Are you serious?! That's awesome!"

Zoro smirks at his new bounty with pride. "60 million's not a bad start either."

"Will you guys be serious?!" Nami says but they don't listen to her as they enjoy the news of their bounties.

Sanji goes up to Usopp with a nervous smirk of being outdone by the swordsman. "I have a bounty too, right?"

"Nope." Usopp says as he keeps looking to see that only Zoro and Luffy have high bounties.

As Sanji keeps trying to get Usopp to mention a bounty for him, Chopper looks around to see that the wind girl is missing. He keeps looking until he spots the brunette in the crow's nest above them. _*What's she-?*_

His thoughts are interrupted when both crews start hearing a strange rumbling noise from below. The sound continues to grow louder as the water begins to rise under the Merry, but not on the other raft.

Robin calmly grabs onto the railing, as if it's something normal, while the others on the deck start freaking out.

Chopper and Usopp scream in fright as they grab onto the mast while the others rush to hold onto something sturdy just before the knock up stream shoots the ship straight up into the sky.

Blackbeard and his crew yell out in shock, as the waves from the crash hit their boat. What the dark dark fruit user didn't expect though, was a bucket of paint to fly straight towards him until the can hits his head, and splashes the blue goo that was inside, all over his head and shoulders.

Blackbeard yelps at the paint job as he catches the dented bucket to see that a poorly drawn face with its tongue sticking out is drawn on the container. "What the hell?"

As soon as the water begins to settle, the blue headed man looks up to see that he's lost sight of his target on the knock up stream, and only received the color coating on this trip.

Meanwhile, the Straw Hats are holding on for dear life as the ship starts sailing vertically on the surface of the knock up stream.

Rose laughs in excitement as she hangs onto the crow's nest. She looks down to see her captain giving off a bright smile as he sits on the figurehead and looks at the rising water that they're sailing on.

Luffy can't stop smiling from the experience of sailing on the side of the geyser. "This is awesome!"

"Why are we sailing up like this?!" Chopper asks as he keeps his hold on the mast.

"Maybe the wind?" Zoro asks, but Sanji's not convinced as he looks to the geyser.

"I think it's more than that. I think we're starting to fall off the stream."

Nami widens her eyes to this and looks up to see Rose sitting on the side of the crow's nest. "ROSE, OPEN UP THE SAILS!"

"Got it!" She flies over to the sails and releases them while the others look at the navigator, that gave the order, in confusion.

Nami sees everyone's concern, so she starts explaining what her plans are. "This isn't a normal stream. It's like it has its own ocean current flowing up. These currents are creating an updrift of wind that we're going to use to sail the skies."

"The sails are set!" Rose says as she flies towards the group just when the ship begins to peel off the knock up stream.

"Oh crap, we're falling!" Usopp cries out as he and Chopper scream, but they quickly quiet down when they and the others see that instead of falling the wind currents are making the ship fly up.

Robin quietly grins at the flight while the others marvel at the amazing experience of the Merry taking flight.

"Your plan is brilliant Nami!" Sanji says as they look around their surroundings.

Luffy looks at the huge cloud that the ship is sailing towards. "I can't wait to see what's up there!"

"You and me both." Rose says as they begin to enter the giant cloud at the top of the geyser.

The water in the cloud engulfs the crew, as the ship keeps rising up with the wings of the boat breaking in half from the impact. They had to hold their breath, because of the increased water pressure as they collapse on the deck, just when the Merry flies out of the cloud and lands on top of the sea of white.

The crew coughs out the water that they accidentally swallowed as they catch their breaths on the deck.

Rose stays on her knees with her hand on the railing as her body feels like it's made of iron instead of air. _*Crap, this air pressure's nuts…*_

"Everyone alright?" Zoro asks as he catches his breath, and the others nod in agreement that they're unharmed.

Luffy stands up and looks around at the cloudy landscape that's surrounding the ship. "Whoa guys! Check this out!"

Once everyone catches their breath, they look around to see that the Merry is literally floating on top of the clouds.

"We're on clouds?!" Chopper asks with stars in his eyes.

"How is this even possible?" Nami asks as she looks at her surroundings in disbelief, but stops when she looks at the log pose on her wrist to see that it hasn't changed. "Why is it still pointing up?"

Robin takes a look at the pose and casually grins at the navigator. "Looks like we need to go further up."

Rose looks down at the clouds and wonders if she could use her wind to take the clouds below them up, but she shakes her head to the idea when she remembers Eneru's observation haki. She stops her mind in its tracks when she realizes that observation haki is going to be used up on the island. _*Wait, is my aura the same as everyone else's or will it stand out to haki users?!*_

She rakes a hand through her, straight, brown bangs at the thought while Chopper uses a pair of binoculars to look around the ship's surroundings.

He looks at the right of the ship, and pauses when he sees another boat in the distance. "Hey guys, I think I see a boat."

When the reindeer begins to look through the binoculars in horror, Sanji's the one to speak up. "What's the matter Chopper?"

"T-the ship was just destroyed!"

"What do you mean destroyed?!" Usopp asks as he takes the binoculars but he can't find anything in Chopper's direction.

Rose immediately twists her head to the reindeer before she looks out in the direction to see a shirtless man in a grass skirt, with a mask behind his face and a bazooka in hand, practically running on the cloud to get to them. "Shit!"

The others look at her in confusion, and then they follow her gaze to see the man heading towards them.

"What the-?!" Luffy cuts himself off when the stranger jumps onto the railing.

Sanji narrows his eyes at the intruder as he, Luffy, and Zoro approach him. "What's your problem?"

"Eliminate." Is the only thing that the enemy says before he jumps into the air right above them.

"The man's got guts." Zoro says as he and the others of the monster trio go to attack, but they weren't quick enough as he jumps from railing to railing to kick them down.

"What the hell?!" Nami asks as she, Usopp and Chopper jump in fright when he lands on the railing right next to them, but before he can do anything Rose blasts a gust of wind at him to send him flying off the ship.

Rose glares at the man as she rushes to the railing, while she pants from the air pressure, and starts turning her arm into air.

The intruder widens his eyes at the logia user from behind the mask, but it doesn't stop him from aiming his bazooka at the ship. _*Die monsters!*_

"That's enough!" The invader turns to his right to see an old knight with a lance in his hand, and riding a pink bird with red polka dots all over its body. Before he could react, the knight attacks him with his lance and sends him falling into the cloud.

Rose holds back a chuckle at Nami, Usopp, and Chopper's shocked faces as they watch the old man who saved them gracefully land on the railing.

"Who's this guy now?!" Usopp asks as the knight turns around to face the crew.

"You wish to know who I am? Well I'm a sky knight."

Rose grins at the introduction while she bows her head. "Thanks for the help."

"Yea, thank you." Chopper says before he goes to make sure that Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji aren't injured.

"What the hell was with you guys?! You should've beaten him easily." Nami says as she narrows her eyes on the guys.

"Shut up, I don't know what happened. It's like my body won't move like I wanted." Zoro says as he catches his breath.

Robin raises an eyebrow at the complaint before she realizes that it's the same for all of them. "That's because the oxygen is scarce here. Our bodies aren't used to this kind of air pressure."

The knight widens his eyes at the analysis before he looks over the crew. "So, you're all from the Blue Sea then?"

"The blue sea?" Usopp asks in confusion.

"That's what we call those who live below the clouds. You all don't live on a sky island?"

Luffy nods to the question as he gets up. "Yea, we're from the blue sea."

"I see, you're all 7000 meters above the blue sea, normal citizens won't handle it."

"Actually, I'm getting used to it." Luffy says as he, Zoro and Sanji start feeling normal again.

"That's impossible." The sky knight says as he sweat drops at the recovery.

Rose chuckles at his surprise as she turns her arms into a light breeze again, and turns it back to normal without any problems. _*Guess I'm feeling better too.*_

The lanky, old, man shakes his head at the odd group before he strokes his long white beard. "In any case, I didn't help you out of charity. I do this as a business. Here."

He tosses Nami a golden whistle before he points to it. "This time will be free, but when you blow that whistle you will need to pay a 50 million aigusu fee for me to save you."

Robin raises an eyebrow at the currency. "What's aigusu?"

The elderly man widens his eyes at the question. "What?! Surely, you've been to a sky island before!"

"We came here through the knock up stream." Rose says which makes the knight gape at the crew in shock.

"You can't be serious!"

"Wait, you mean there's more than one way to get here?!" Nami asks, but his face is the only confirmation she needs to know that it's true, so she whacks Luffy on the head. "If you didn't rush us then we could've tried to find a safer way to get here!"

"My bad." Luffy says as he rubs his head.

The knight continues to gape at them as he asks Luffy a question. "Did you lose anyone on the way up here?"

The captain shakes his head at the question. "Nope, we're all here."

The elder blinks at the answer before he looks around the crew once more to, and sees that there's more to them than they appear. He points to the whistle that he gave Nami. "I'll only give you one free pass for going through something so crazy. When you need help, blow that whistle and I'll come to your aid. Any time after that, I will charge you the 50 million aigusu, which is this ocean's currency."

"Wait, we don't even know your name!" Nami says when she sees him about to get on his bird.

The man stops to turn to the crew. "My name's Gan Fall, as I said before I'm a sky knight. This is Pierre, he ate the horse horse fruit."

Usopp widens his eyes at the news before he, Chopper, Luffy and Rose eagerly grin at the bird, that's starting to transform. "You mean he's a-"

The boys stop their excitement to see that he transformed into a pink horse with red polka dots and large with wings on his back.

"That's right, he's a Pegasus. Best of luck friends!" Gan Fall says as he flies off to his home and leaves a pack of confused pirates behind.

"What a weird animal." Luffy says, with the boys agreeing.

Rose however, is still marveling at the flying animal that's disappearing from view. "That Pegasus is beautiful."

The boys sweat drop at her admiration for the strange creature while Robin looks around and sees a cloudy waterfall. "What's that?"

The crew follows her eyes to the waterfall before Luffy grins at the potential adventure. "Let's go check it out."

The others silently agree as they sail the clouds towards the waterfall. Once they make it, they widen their eyes to see a large gate up ahead.

Usopp looks at the gate that's titled 'Heaven's Gate' and begins to shiver. "T-this has to be a bad omen…"

Zoro chuckles at his fright as he relaxes by the railing. "Who knows? Maybe we're already dead."

Sanji hums in thought as he lights his cigarette. "This cloudy ocean could make sense then."

"WHAT?!" Chopper asks in fear before Rose chuckles.

"Relax doc, they're just teasing." She looks around and freezes when she sees an old lady, with twin buns in her white hair, and wings on her back.

The crew stops at the gatekeeper when the elderly woman takes pictures of the crew, with a camera that quickly prints the pictures, before she speaks up. "If you kids want to pass this gate then you need to pay 1 billion aigusu for each person."

Most of the pirates look at her in shock, but Rose stays calm as she walks up to the railing. "How much is aigusu in blue sea beli?"

The crew can only stare at Rose for the smart question before the elder answers her. "10 thousand aigusu is 1 beli."

Nami blinks at the answer before she calculates the numbers. "So, a billion aigusu is a hundred thousand beli then…"

She looks around the crew to see that she would need 800 thousand beli in order to pass, which she doesn't have that much to give. She nervously smiles at the gatekeeper in hopes of lowering the price. "Umm, we don't have that kind of money…"

"Then you can still go up." The old lady says which makes them pretty surprised.

"Seriously?!" Usopp says but the gatekeeper just raises her hand to the waterfall with a grin.

"Go right ahead, whether or not you want to go up is your decision." She keeps a calm smile on her face before she puts the camera in the pocket of her dress. "I'm not the guard. I'm just here to tell you the fee and to know of your intentions."

Luffy blinks at the explanation before he grins at her. "Ok, we want to go up to sky island even though we don't have any money.

"That's fine, there's eight of you right?"

Luffy nods before he looks at the waterfall. "So how do we get up there?"

Before he could get an answer, a giant red shrimp, with purple dots on its back, surfaces right below the ship and grabs the boat.

"What the hell?" Zoro asks as the crew grabs onto the railing to keep their balance.

The native giggles at their surprise before she explains what the fish is. "This is the white sea's speedy shrimp. This will take you up the waterfall and to the island."

The crew widens their eyes at the explanation before they scream in shock and excitement as the shrimp takes them up the waterfall, that leads to a winding cloud road, and takes them upwards regardless.

The old woman only smirks at their departure before she grabs a seashell and pushes the top button to begin speaking to it. "This is Heaven's Gate watcher Yamashiun reporting. We have eight intruders who entered into god's country illegally. I leave their judgement into your capable hands oh mighty god."

She finishes the recording before she places the photos she made into an envelope, hands both the shell and photos to a smaller speedy white shrimp, that's just as big as she is, and watches her report go up to Sky Island's leaders to pass judgement on the new intruders.

TO BE CONTINUED

* * *

 **A/N: Hey guys, I hope you enjoyed. Sorry for the long wait, I had a major case of writer's block and I just bought a house. Now that the pressure's off though I'll do my best to make the next chapter great. Until then my fellow OP fans! ;D**


	28. Chapter 28

The large shrimp that's bringing the crew up the twisted cloud road doesn't stop for a second as it continues to ascend the ship to new heights.

"How is this even possible?!" Nami asks as she clings to the railing to keep her balance.

Rose chuckles at her disbelief as she relaxes next to her. "Hard to tell what's not possible anymore. This river could be man-made for all we know."

Robin looks ahead to see that the ship is reaching another gateway. "It looks like we're reaching the exit."

"Looks like there's something written on the gate." Chopper says while Usopp grabs his binoculars.

Once the sniper takes a look at the sign at the top of the gate, he begins to grow more nervous. "It says that we're heading to Godland Skypiea!"

Luffy widely grins at the announcement as they're about to get through the gate. "Then let's go!"

Once the speedy shrimp takes them through the gate, everyone gapes in awe at the large island that's mostly made of clouds except for the trees and buildings.

Rose widely grins at the beautiful white island, as the ship gets closer to the beach, before she heads inside to change clothes. Once the boat stops, Luffy wastes no time in jumping overboard to run around on the soft shoreline. "This is awesome!"

Usopp and Chopper quickly join in as they jump onto the cloudy beach.

"Hey what about the anchor?! There's no sea floor here!" Zoro says, but his captain is too busy running around to worry about it.

"Never mind…" The swordsman quietly sighs at his childishness before he looks around at the amazing island. "I can't believe a place like this exists."

Sanji nods in agreement as he rolls up the bottom of his pants and takes off his blazer. "You got that right, no wonder the others are so excited."

He quickly dives off into the cloudy ocean to swim into the water with a goofy grin, and leaves Zoro to sweat drop at his antics. "You're no different from them…"

He shakes his head at the situation before he drops the anchor into the water.

Meanwhile, Rose walks outside in a pale purple tank top, black capris with her sword strapped onto her light blue belt, dark blue sandals with a thin ankle strap to keep them from falling off, and her dark red backpack safely strapped on. When she looks around, she finds Nami about to free the south bird with the bird waiting patiently for freedom.

Once the south bird is finally free of his chain, he flies towards Nami to peck at her, but before he can do anything Rose creates a gust of wind to lift him away from her.

The bird angrily squawks at the wind girl, while she only chuckles and waves at him. "Sorry for not freeing you sooner, but we won't bother you anymore."

The bird only narrows his eyes at the easygoing, freckled, girl before he accepts his freedom and flies away from the crazy crew.

Nami quietly sighs in relief of not getting pecked before she turns to Zoro. "Did you drop the anchor?"

"Yea, but I'm not sure if it'll do any good with the island being made up of clouds."

Robin looks down at the cloud before she turns to Nami. "Is your log pose still pointing up?"

The navigator blinks at the question before she looks to see that the log pose is pointing towards the island. "Nope, this is exactly where we're supposed to be."

"Works for me." Rose says as she wastes no time in flying off the ship to join the Luffy, Chopper, and Usopp in running around on the soft, fluffy, clouds that make up the beach.

Nami quickly follows them onto the beach while Robin and Zoro stay behind.

Zoro gets ready to get off when he sees Robin staring at the island. "You're not coming?"

"I'll be there soon." The archaeologist says as she takes in the beautiful sight of an island in the sky. "It really is amazing though. I never thought that sailing and landing on islands could be an adventure too."

Zoro raises an eyebrow at the comment as he watches her get off the ship without another word. He shakes his head to not think much into it before he gets off the boat to join the others in enjoying the new surroundings.

As Sanji and Robin are admiring at the balloon like flowers nearby, Nami and Chopper are in a gazebo where even the chairs are made of clouds. Usopp gathers up the clouds under his feet to see if he could make a castle, while Zoro relaxes under a palm tree with pumpkin like fruits hanging on it, with Luffy climbing onto the same tree.

Rose doesn't waste time in sitting on a separate palm tree with her camera in hand as she not only takes pictures of the sky island, but also of her crew mates as they do their own thing.

Luffy doesn't notice the picture taking in the tree next to him as he wraps his legs around the top of the tree trunk to keep him from falling so that he grabs onto one of the dark green fruits on top.

Once he takes a bite into the green pumpkin, his teeth immediately start to ache from trying to munch into the hard fruit. He groans from the pain to see that his teeth didn't even make a dent into the solid food, so he starts hitting it. "Hey, open up!"

He freezes when he hears a camera going off, along with a few giggles, to see Rose capturing his cute antics on camera. He only stares at her with big, dark, eyes for a moment, before he stretches one of his hands towards her.

Rose raises an eyebrow at the rubber hand reaching for her until it grabs her camera, and brings it to him. Before she can question him, Luffy quickly starts taking pictures of her without warning. She chuckles at his retaliation as she grins at the camera, and raises her hand up to give him the peace sign.

After the fifth picture, he waves for her to come over with a bright smile. "Come take a picture with me!"

The brunette didn't need to be told twice as she flies next to him. Luffy throws the pumpkin onto the ground, before he wraps an arm around Rose's shoulders, and stretches his other arm back a little so that the camera can catch them both.

Rose couldn't stop her blush from coming out as she wraps an arm around his shoulders, with a sheepish grin, before her captain takes a picture of the pair.

Once Luffy's done, he hands her back the camera and blinks when he sees the blush on her freckled cheeks. "Hey, are you ok? Your face is red again."

She quickly nods as she puts the camera back in her bag while she fights off the blush. "Y-yea, I'm all good. Thanks for the picture."

She lands on the beach before any more questions could be asked, and starts piling up the clouds together so that she can practice her cloud manipulation.

Luffy sweat drops at her retreat before he grabs another pumpkin and tries to eat it, but it's still too hard for him. He looks down at Usopp making a cloud castle before a mischievous grin appears on his face. "Hey Usopp, want some fruit?"

The sniper didn't have time to answer before the rock-like fruit landed on top of his head. Usopp twitches an eyebrow in irritation when he hears his captain laughing before he glares up at him. "Stay right there!"

The rubber man doesn't listen as he jumps from tree to tree while he's still laughing with the sniper in pursuit for revenge.

Rose chuckles at the chase as she looks at the large clump of the cloud that she managed to pile up, so that it's as tall as her. She takes a deep breath before she creates a gust of wind around the cloud to change its shape, so that it barely looks like a three-layered snowman. She happily grins at the crooked cloud man as she tries again, but stops to hear the sound of a harp playing.

The rest of the crew also stops what they're doing to the sound of the soft music being played. Zoro looks around for the source when he freezes to see a tiny white fox, with a long snout, running up to him. "What the-? A fox?"

The others don't notice the animal, but instead find that the musician on top of a cloud hill by the white sea, is a young woman in a pink dress with her blond hair in braided pigtails along with two antennae on top of her head. What the pirates found the most astonishing about this girl though, is that there are two small wings on her back.

"She's an angel!" Sanji says when the mysterious girl notices the audience, and greets the newcomers with a friendly smile.

"Heso."

The pirates look at the girl in confusion for the odd greeting as she walks over to them. "Are you guys from the blue sea?"

Rose nods at the question before she grins down at the fox by Zoro's feet. "Is that your fox?"

The native nods before she turns her attention to her pet. "Sue, come here."

Sue quickly obeys as he runs over to the girl while she introduces herself. "My name's Conis. I live not too far from here."

She looks to see Luffy holding one of the pumpkin fruits and points to it. "That fruit is called a gaunasu, do you want to drink it?"

Luffy raises an eyebrow at the question, but nonetheless he hands her the fruit.

Conis calmly smiles at the fruit as she flips it upside down, and takes a pocket knife out of her dress pocket. "This fruit is as hard as steel on the outside, but you can open the bottom to drink its juices.

Once she cuts a small hole at the center of the bottom of the fruit, she places a straw inside and hands it back to Luffy.

Luffy tilts his head at the fruit before he takes a sip, and his eyes immediately bug out from the amazing taste. "This is awesome!"

"Really?! Let me try!" Usopp says as he takes the fruit to sip on it with Chopper quickly following.

Conis looks down to see Sue nuzzling her ankle for attention, so she picks her up before she grins at her guests. "If you guys need help with understanding the island I can help."

Sanji steps up to the woman with a gentlemanly smile. "There's something I need help with. You see, your beautiful gaze has burnt a hole in my heart- Ow!"

Nami pulls him close to her by the ear to stop him from flirting before she smiles at Conis. "There's actually a lot of things we'd like to know about this island."

"Ask away."

"What's coming over here from the sea?" Zoro asks which makes the rest of the crew look out to the white sea in confusion to see a middle-aged, winged, man riding a fast one-man boat towards the shore.

Conis brightens up at the bald man with two brown antennae on his head, that matches his fluffy beard, and recognizes him. "Heso father!"

"Father?" Robin asks, but she doesn't receive an answer as the sailing man is riding towards them with barely any control on his small boat.

When Nami looks at the boat he's riding, she sees that there's no sails, and the only thing that seems to be controlling it are the handlebars that Conis' father is barely keeping ahold of. "What kind of boat is that?"

"It's a boat called the waver." Conis says as her father shows no signs of stopping while he gets closer to them.

"Excuse me, but I have to stop now." Conis' dad says, but he sails onto the shore and makes the crew jump out of the way to avoid getting run over.

Just before the waver is about to hit a tree, Conis' father widens his eyes to see that he's flying off the boat on a gust of wind and avoids crashing with his ride.

Conis looks at her dad in complete shock, because she's never seen her dad flying before. "Father?!"

"Sorry, that's me." Rose says as she slowly releases her wind to gently land him next to his daughter.

Conis and her father widen their eyes at the wind girl before the winged man chuckles at his luck. "Now that was an amazing experience. Thank you for the help."

Rose nods at the gratitude as she watches him grab his waver to see that it's not damaged from the crash. He looks at the wingless group with his daughter curiously. "You're all from the blue sea?"

Conis nods with a calm smile. "That's right, they're my friends."

The bald man nods as he grins at the pirates. "Forgive me for not introducing myself earlier. My name's Pagaya."

"There's no need for you to apologize." Usopp says when he notices the basket on his back. "What were you doing out there?"

Pagaya looks back at his basket, and grins when he shows him one of the many sky lobsters that he caught. "I was just out fishing these sky lobsters. I have more than enough for everyone if you wish to join us for lunch."

"Awesome!" Luffy says as he, Chopper and Usopp grin in excitement.

Sanji brightens up at the offer as he steps up. "Please let me help, I'd love to learn about your cuisine."

Pagaya happily nods while Nami goes over to the waver.

The navigator can't help but be curious at the small boat that has no sails or paddles to move it, yet it can sail so quickly. "Before we go I'm really curious, how does this waver work?"

Conis blinks at the question before realization hits her. "Oh I see, you don't have experience with dials, do you?"

Nami blinks at the new term before she looks back at the boat. "A dial?"

Conis nods as she goes up to the boat and shows her the two foot pedals that are in between the stand holding the handlebars. "They're what we use to power the boat and these pedals help channel them. The pedal on the right accelerates it and the left one stops it."

Luffy widely smiles at the cool boat as he approaches it. "Can I try?"

"Go ahead." Conis says as she takes the waver to the sea just before Luffy gets on.

Rose looks at the waver in thought as she tries to remember what happens with Luffy's ride when she read about it. When she realizes that he's going to crash, it's too late as Luffy takes off without warning.

"Whoa, look at him go!" Chopper says as he and the others watch Luffy quickly sailing off.

Luffy happily laughs at how fast the waver's taking him before the handles start shaking. "What the hell?!"

He tries to keep control of the waver, but the turning handles keep moving on their own and makes the boat start swerving. "Why is it shaking?! I can't stop!"

Rose starts flying after him, while she ignores everyone's questions, just when the wavers completely loses control and flips over with Luffy going head first into the white waters.

"Crap!" Rose makes it just above where he fell and blows wind out of her hand to create hole in the cloud so that Luffy's upper half can be seen for her to focus on.

But, just before she can try to pull him up, Luffy stretches his arms to grab her shoulders and slingshots himself towards her. He shoots up so fast that she couldn't react in time to stop him before his face accidentally crashes onto hers so hard that it sends them both flying.

Rose flinches from the hard headbutt, but widens her eyes when she feels a pair of warm, chapped, lips on hers. She looks in Luffy's eyes that are equally as shocked as hers, and realizes that her captain, Monkey D. Luffy himself, stole her first kiss. With no idea on how to react, her mind immediately shuts down as her face goes from pale to crimson in a matter of seconds.

Luffy quickly pulls away from her soft lips and rubs his head with one hand while the other stays on her shoulder. "Ouch, that hurt!" He looks around to see that Rose isn't using her wind, as they are still being sent flying from his stunt, and looks at the blushing girl in confusion. "Hey Rose, you alright?"

"Uh…" She can barely answer the concerned question as the flustered girl is still stuck in a daze while they're descending.

Luffy's eyes bug out of his head when he sees that they're heading towards the water, and calls out to the wind girl in his arms. "ROSE, SNAP OUT OF IT! WE'RE FALLING!"

Regardless of being shaken and yelled at to make more wind, the shell-shocked girl was only able to snap out of it when they've hit the water with Luffy's arms still around her.

The others can only drop their jaws at what they just witnessed, except for Sanji who's completely furious.

"HOW DARE YOU STEAL ROSE-CHAN'S LIPS YOU BASTARD?!" The fuming chef dives after the pair while the others are still wondering what exactly did they just witness.

Zoro can only shake his head at the craziness before he takes off his shoes and mutters under his breath. "Better make sure he doesn't kill Luffy."

He joins Sanji in going after the drowning pirates while the rest of pirates start to slowly recover from the sight.

Pagaya looks at the water nervously before he turns to the crew. "Will your friends be alright?!"

Nami nods while she tries to suppress a smirk from the crazy kiss she saw. "With Zoro and Sanji after them, they should be fine."

As if on command, Zoro emerges while he drags Luffy, who's holding two lumps on his head courtesy of Sanji, out of the water by his foot. "Dammit, they almost fell out of the cloud."

Sanji carries Rose bridal style out of the water while he glares at Luffy, who's catching his breath from almost drowning. "You owe Rose-chan an apology, you shitty captain!"

Rose quickly gets out of Sanji's hold, while her face is still lightly red, and steps in front of him before he can hit Luffy again. "It's fine, it was just an accident."

Luffy sits up cross legged and nods in agreement. "Yea, what's the big deal if we kissed anyway? It's not like it felt bad."

The others freeze at the comment and turn to the rubber man, who's staring at them with big, innocent eyes, with one question in mind. _*HE KNOWS WHAT A KISS IS?!*_

Rose struggles to fight off the small blush on her cheeks from his adorable stare before she shakes her head. "T-there's nothing wrong with it at all. Accidents happen all the time, so let's leave it alone."

She moves to the back of the group while she ignores the captain's curious stare and the happy smirk the navigator is giving her. She uses her wind to play with the clouds by her feet to distract herself and get rid of the blush. _*Dammit, what the hell's wrong with me?! Stop being so flustered already!*_

The others leave the matter alone when they see the waver drifting back to shore, so Usopp goes up to it and drags it to the beach.

Conis looks at the waver sadly before she looks at the crew with an apologetic look in her eyes. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have lent this to a beginner."

"Is it really that hard to master a waver?" Robin asks as she looks over the small boat curiously.

Pagaya nods as he points to the boat. "The hulls are light, so even the smallest wave can set it to turn. You need to understand the sea very well in order to master it."

"This isn't so bad!" Nami says which makes them all turn to see that the navigator took the waver, while they weren't looking, and is sailing it like a pro.

Usopp's eyes bug out from the shock of how well she's riding the waver compared to Luffy. "I can't believe she did it!"

"That's awesome!" Chopper says as he watches her practically gliding on the ocean with ease.

Luffy grows jealous of how Nami could ride it at the first try, and calls out to her. "HEY NAMI, WE'RE HEADING TO THE WING GUY'S PLACE! COME BACK-!"

He stops calling out when the chef kicks him in the back of his head. "Knock it off."

Nami ignores her captain's complaining as she waves to Pagaya. "Is it ok if I ride out here for a while?!"

"Yes, but please be careful!" Pagaya leads Conis and the pirates towards a long staircase that goes to his home while he happily chats with the others on how Skypiea operates.

As the crew walks up the staircase, Rose stays in the back of the herd and looks back to see Nami still in their sights. _*It shouldn't take long for her to head to the Upper Yard. Maybe I should-*_

She snaps out of it when she feels a hand on her shoulder and jolts when she sees Luffy looking at her curiously. "Hey, what are you doing? You're falling behind."

She can't even look him in the eye without remembering the kiss, so she shyly looks away from him and stares at the beach that they left behind. "Sorry, I was just thinking about some things. Actually, I'm not really hungry, so I'm gonna keep practicing my wind on the beach. I'll catch you later."

Before Luffy can say anything, she flies off the staircase and lands on the shoreline to start practicing her wind on the cloud man she abandoned.

Luffy stares back at the training girl for a moment before he rejoins the others at the small house at the top of the stairs.

When Rose looks back to see that she's alone on the beach she buries her face in the back of the cloud man to try to calm herself down. She knows that the kiss was just an accident, but she can barely look at Luffy without remembering it. What she can't shake off is that while most people would be pissed if someone kissed them like that, she isn't mad at all. Instead, it's the fact that she liked the way his lips felt on hers that's gotten her so frazzled.

She quickly shakes her head to get rid of that feeling before she takes her head out of the cloud, and blows it away with her wind. She keeps making cloud men with her wind and then blows them down repeatedly to take her emotions out on something. "Dammit, I gotta stop thinking about this like a fucking idiot! Accidents don't count as a first kiss, that was just a headbutt! I'm just letting Nami's comments about us get to me!"

She stops her childish rant of denial when she remembers Nami, and looks towards the ocean to see that the navigator's wandering away from the beach. "Shit!"

She picks herself up with her wind and flies after her at a distance where Nami won't notice her, but the brunette can still keep an eye on her.

The distance worked for Nami never noticed the wind girl behind her as she reaches another island that looks exactly like the forest in Jaya.

The redhead gapes at the sight as she coasts toward the edge of the land. "Whoa, this place is huge. Is this still Skypiea?"

"That's a good question." Nami jolts at the sound of Rose's voice and turns to see her floating next to her as if she was always there.

"When the hell did you get here?!"

Rose casually shrugs as she goes to the island and puts her feet on the ground. "Just now, I saw you wandering off, so I thought I'd explore with you."

She stomps on the ground with curiosity, as if she doesn't know that the land is from the blue sea. "This is weird though; this place isn't made up of clouds like back there. This is regular land."

Nami nods in agreement as she stares up at the trees that are as tall as a giant. "Maybe we should turn back. I'm not getting a good feeling about this place."

"I couldn't agree more." Rose quickly flies back to her, but when they turn around, they freeze to see that the man who attacked the ship is ten feet behind them with a bazooka aimed in their direction.

However, instead of firing at them he jumps off the cloud and shoots the island.

The pirates widen their eyes at the blast before they hear a man screaming in pain.

The girls look towards the sound in shock to see a slightly muscular, young man with short shaggy blonde hair, dressed in a light yellow shirt and black knee high shorts flying in their direction from the blast. However, the barefoot man didn't go far as he lands face first on the shoreline.

The wounded stranger ignores the blood flowing from his tan forehead as he silently pants from exhaustion. He slowly lifts his head to find some way off the island, but stops in shock to see a girl flying over the ocean with another girl on a waver. He barely cares about the unusual sight as he raises an arm to them. "P-please, help me…"

Rose quickly nods as she starts using her wind to lift him up when the skies begin to go from blue to dark grey from the clouds forming above them.

"W-what's going on?" Nami asks as she shivers in fear just when a large, blue, lightning bolt plunges from the sky towards the man on the island. However, before it could hit its mark, Rose throws him into the water to avoid the blast.

The bazooka wielder widens his eyes at the strike before he retreats to leave the girls alone to stare at the fire that the lightning started.

The man that Rose threw into the water gasps for breath, after he swam to the surface just in front of the girls and grins up at them with tears of relief in his brown eyes. "T-thank you."

"Hurry, get the fire out!" The trio looks to see four winged men, a giant bird, and a large dog working to put the growing flames out, and don't notice that the man they've been chasing has survived.

"Don't thank us yet, we gotta hide." Rose says as she manipulates the cloud surrounding him to move away from him until his kicking legs start showing, so she can create a gust of wind for him to fly on.

The others nod in agreement as Nami sails close to the distant coast to hid behind a large tree, with Rose following her with the man floating right beside her.

Rose peeks from behind the tree to see the four odd men have just finished putting the fire. _*So these four are the priests…*_

"Get back!" Nami whispers as she pulls Rose back by the arm before she could be noticed by them.

A bald muscular man with pointy sunglasses pats his giant white dog before he stares at the coast. "Did you guys hear him talking to someone before the blast?"

A pale man with long red hair and with a physique that's similar to a ball nods as he adjusts his round glasses. "I think I saw a raider sailing away Ohm, it was probably him. Still, what was Eneru thinking doing-?"

He pauses when he senses something new, so he looks around the area which makes the others stare at him in confusion.

The middle-aged priest, who looks like a pilot with a pointed mustache, raises an eyebrow at his searching comrade. "What are you doing Satori?"

The one known as Satori can only look at his fellow priests in shock. "I should be asking you that Shura! Don't you guys notice the weird mantra nearby?! It's practically screaming at me!"

Nami raises an eyebrow at the question, while both Rose and the man that they were after widen their eyes in horror.

The wind girl slowly peeks from behind the tree again to see that all of the winged men are now on alert, in comparison to how they were in the anime. _*Oh my fucking god, this means my aura's different from the others! Shit nuts!*_

She quickly hides before she's noticed, while they're still searching for the strange presence.

"You're right, I've never sensed anything like this before." Ohm says before he looks at the direction the pirates are hiding in. He looks to the, dark skinned, priest whose dreadlocks are pointing up and nods to him. "Gedatsu..."

Gedatsu doesn't speak because he's busy biting his lower lip, so he only nods as he and the other priests look towards the direction.

Nami begins to shake in fear, but stays silent while the stranger is trembling even worse than her. "T-they found-?!"

Rose covers his mouth with one hand for a second before she puts a finger to her lips to indicate them to stay silent. Once they nod in understanding, she snaps her fingers with right hand and catches the tiny tornado in her hands. She takes a deep breath before she lifts the tornado into the air with her wind to help it grow, and throws it at the priests who are stalking towards them without looking.

The four men stop walking and tilt their heads when they see the small tornado fly towards them, but their confusion immediately changes to shock as the tornado grows in mid-air to their height.

"WHAT THE HELL?!" Shura asks as he and his comrades get dragged into the twister along with the bird and dog.

Rose peeks her purple eyes over the tree with the others, to see the priests are sucked into the tornado. "Now's our chance!"

Nami nods as she sails off on the waver. Before Rose follows her, she creates another tornado with her left hand and uses her wind to push it towards the first tornado to make sure that they'll cancel each other out eventually.

The stranger, that she saved, widens his eyes at the mercy as Rose flies them away from the island to catch up to Nami. "Why did you do that?! When they get free, they'll just come after us!"

Rose quietly sighs as she looks ahead. "As far as they're concerned you're already dead, so you shouldn't be worrying. As for us, we can handle them."

"Easy for you to say with your crazy powers!" Nami says before she looks up at the blonde man. "As for you, we want answers! Who are you?! Who were those guys?! And why were they after you?!"

The man quickly nods before he looks back at the island to see that the twisters have collided for a second and then faded away. "I'll tell you whatever you want when we're safe!"

Rose nods in agreement as they rush to get out of there while they still could.

Meanwhile, the priests, dog and the bird have just landed face first on the ground, after the tornado that kept them flying was cancelled out by the second tornado.

"How did a cyclone just appear?!" Satori asks as he rubs his aching head.

Shura growls at the humiliation he was put through, as he gets on the back of his large, purple feathered bird. "I'm sure our tornado maker is the one with the strange mantra. When we were flying, I saw some people taking to the ocean to escape. I'm going after them. Come on Fuza!"

The bird calls out in agreement as he starts flying, but before they can leave the island, blue lightning bolts start flashing across the sky.

All the priests, except for Ohm, have to cover their eyes from the blinding flashes as they shoot across the clouds with thunder rumbling right after it.

Being the only one with sunglasses, Ohm curiously watches the flashes before they fade away along with the dark storm clouds. Once the priests calm down, Ohm gets on the back of his dog before he speaks up. "Leave them be, Eneru obviously noticed the new mantra as well. We need to go see how he wants to deal with this."

The others silently agree as they turn away from the coastline and leave to see what their master has to say about the new occurrence.

* * *

Once the three intruders knew that they were safe, the man could no longer stop himself from crying tears of joy for surviving the ordeal. As the three of them continue travelling across the ocean, he wastes no time in repaying his debt by telling Rose and Nami everything they want to know.

"So your name's Eddy?" Rose asks, with the blonde quickly nodding as he wipes his tears.

"Yea, I'm a pirate from the blue sea. My crew came here to find the city of gold, but I'm the only one left."

Nami widens her eyes at the story in terror, because that's what she wants to do on the island before she looks back at the land they were on. "Are you telling me that just those four men took out your whole crew?"

Eddy grabs onto his arms to try to stop shivering from the memory as he looks away. "Those four are not ordinary men. They're this island's priests, said to be the strongest soldiers on the island. They can practically sense what moves you're going to make before you do it."

"Is that what they meant by mantra?" Nami asks, with Rose jolting from the reminder that her aura sticks out, like a sore thumb, to haki users.

Neither of them notices the wind girl's flinch as Eddy scratches the back of his head. "To be honest, I'm not exactly sure of it myself. This is the first time they said anything about mantra being strange though."

Rose clenches her fists at what she'll have to face before she changes the subject. "You said that those four were priests, right? Did they say anything about what they worship?"

Eddy freezes at the question before he begins to tremble again. "Their god Eneru lives on the island and is said to be the most powerful of them all! I bet you that lightning bolt that tried to kill me was his doing!"

"I believe you." Rose says as she softens up at what the survivor had to go through, and gently pats his shoulder to give him some comfort.

Nami grows more nervous by the minute, and begins to wonder if the treasure is worth facing the island's god. "S-so you're saying that this island's god ordered those guys to go after your crew, because you went after their treasure?"

He shakes his head as his sadness turns into fury from the memory of how they got in this mess in the first place. "No, it was that old bitch at the gate! We didn't have the money to pay the entrance fee, but she let us pass only to report us to the priests!"

Rose and Nami widen their eyes at the explanation, when they remember the old gatekeeper they met, before they turn to each other.

"Nami, you don't think..."

The navigator slowly nods before she looks ahead. "We gotta warn the others!"

Rose looks over the cloud island that's coming into view and stops following Nami. "You go on ahead, I'm gonna drop this guy off."

Nami silently agrees as she starts sailing in the direction of the beach that they were playing on.

Rose looks around the coastline to find an abandoned beach that's connected to the island that they were on before. "Do you think you can walk?"

Eddy nods, because the wounds are mainly shallow ones on his torso and head, so she heads over to the shoreline with him and gently sets him down on his feet. She stays flying over the coastline with a soft look on her face before she bows her head to the pirate. "Thank you for answering our questions, and I'm sorry for the loss of your crew."

She straightens up and flies up to look over the hill, that separates the island from the beach, to see a small town that's not too far from here. "I'm also sorry that I can't bring you to our ship's doctor, but since my crew will be Eneru's next target it's best that you stay away from us. There's a town past this hill that should have a doctor, so if you go there and lay low you should be alright."

She turns away to leave when he grabs her wrist. "Wait, why did you save me? Once they find out that you attacked them, they won't hesitate to kill you!"

She raises an eyebrow at the question before she shrugs and pulls her arm free. "Don't worry about it. My crew would've gotten on their bad side even if I hadn't thrown a tornado at them. As for your question, I didn't want to get nightmares by watching you die. Just don't waste this second chance by acting like a douche bag ok?"

He blinks at the explanation of not wanting nightmares, but he doesn't question it as his confusion turns to overwhelming happiness of having survived the ordeal and slowly nods. "Thank you…"

Rose nods with a tiny grin evident on her freckled face from the gratitude before she flies off to rejoin her crew mates at Angel Beach.

* * *

A few minutes before the girls escaped the island, the rest of the Straw Hats along with Pagaya and Conis head back to the beach to work on a spare waver. However, before they could do anything, a group of winged soldiers wear white berets crawl on the beach towards them.

The pirates drop their jaws at the sight while the natives are looking at them in shock.

"What are the white berets doing here?!" Conis asks as the squad stops.

The small army quickly stands up and stays in position while their leader turns to the pirates that are just staring at them in confusion. "Blue Sea pirates, you are found guilty of entering this island illegally!"

Conis and Pagaya widen their eyes at what they heard before they step away from the pirates.

"You're trespassers?!" Pagaya asks nervously, but the Straw Hats however, only stare in confusion because they were told to go through the gate.

"What are you talking about?" Luffy asks but the commander takes a picture of the pirates out of his pocket and shows it to the crew.

"Don't try to deny it. The watcher of Heaven's Gate informed us of your crime after you trespassed."

Sanji raises an eyebrow at the accusation before he turns to the others. "When did we trespass?"

"I think he's talking about the entrance fee that we didn't pay." Robins casually says as if there's nothing wrong with what she said.

Usopp widens his eyes at the explanation before he turns to the soldiers. "But the old lady said that we could go through the gate!"

The commander sighs as he puts the picture away and raises his hands up. "Now hold on, this crime is minor."

The pirates looks at the soldier in confusion as he explains the situation. "Illegal trespassing is a class 11 crime. You just have to pay the fine and you'll become regular tourists."

Zoro raises an eyebrow at the explanation before he scowls at them. "You should've said that from the beginning. What's the fine?"

"You just need to pay ten times the entrance fee. Since there are eight of you in total, the fine is 80 billion aigusu."

Chopper widens his eyes at the fine before he turns to the others. "If 10 thousand aigusu is in a beli, then doesn't that mean we have to pay 8 million beli?!"

Robin nods at the math question before Sanji glares at the soldiers. "That's too much! Why didn't the old lady just stop us if this would happen?!"

"If you had paid the fee at the gate, then it would only be 800 thousand beli." The commander says but the pirates are still unhappy about this situation, because both prices are too expensive.

Sanji puffs a smoke from his cigarette before he looks at the ocean. "We don't have time for this. Both Nami and Rose are still missing and-"

He cuts himself off when he sees the navigator sailing towards them on the waver. "Nami-swan~! There you are!"

Nami widens her eyes at the white berets when Usopp calls out to her from the shore. "Nami, do you have a stash of beli?! We need to pay 8 million beli!"

The navigator twitches an eye at the expensive fine as she keeps her head down. "You're saying we need to pay 8 million beli?"

The white berets look at the rider in confusion as she sails towards them as fast as she can. When they realize that she's not stopping anytime soon, it was too late for them to dodge as she sails onto the shoreline so fast that the waver starts flying until it hits the commander straight in the face. "THAT'S TOO EXPENSIVE!"

Every single person on the beach, including Nami, were shocked at what she did as the commander flew backwards until he crashed into a gazebo.

Nami quickly turns off the waver just before it lands on the beach with everyone's eyes still on the navigator. The redhead looks at the broken down gazebo, that collapsed on the leader of the white berets, in horror as she realizes her mistake. "I lost it from the stupid fine!"

"Are you kidding?!" Usopp asks, but he doesn't receive an answer from her as she runs to the crew.

As the soldiers rush to retrieve their captain from the gazebo, Rose flies in and widens her eyes to the damage. "What the hell?!"

The rest of the crew notice her arrival and look at her in confusion as she lands on the beach.

"We should be asking you that. Where were you and Nami?" Zoro asks.

Rose quietly sighs as she rubs the back of her head. "We went exploring and found out that we're in deep shit with the island's ruler."

That just leaves the pirates, who didn't see the island confused, but Nami quickly nods in agreement as she gives the waver back to Pagaya. "We need to get out of here now!"

Before the others could do anything, the captain of the white berets has been dug out of the broken gazebo and glares at the pirates. "YOU'RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE! WHAT SHE DID WAS A CLASS 5 CRIME! I'M SENTENCING YOU ALL TO DRIFTING CLOUD!"

The pirates only look at the man in confusion as Conis and Pagaya become horrified by the sentence.

Luffy tilts his head at their fright of a strange sentence. "What's drifting cloud?"

Conis nervously turns to him before she explains it. "It's a sentence where your all placed on a small cloud only to drift in the sky until you die! It's a death penalty!"

Robin hums at the explanation, as she crosses her arms over her chest, while she remembers the ship that fell from the sky. "That could explain what happened to the ship that fell out of the sky. The crew must've received the same sentence two hundred years ago."

Usopp and Chopper yelp in fright of the same fate happening to them while half the soldiers get their bows and arrows ready.

Luffy, Sanji, Zoro, and Rose narrow their eyes at the white berets before they fire their arrows.

What surprised them though, was that instead of the arrows flying towards them like regular ones do, they swerved in the air with thick cloud trails following behind them. The four of them quickly dodge the arrows, but while they were distracted the white berets jump onto the clouds, wearing skates on their feet that were like what the raider had on when he attacked the ship, and start gliding on them.

Usopp and Chopper run to the back to avoid the confrontation with Nami, while the others get their guards up against the gliding soldiers who are unsheathing their twin swords.

Luffy quickly dodges the swordsmen by stretching his arm up to the tree above them, grabbing on, and catapulting himself into the air.

The captain along with half of the soldiers were slack jawed at the sight of the rubber man before they were met with Luffy's stretched fists and kicks to send them flying.

Zoro smirks at the fight as he joins the fray by slashing at any soldier that gets in his way. A white beret on one of the higher clouds grits his teeth as he tosses his swords and grabs a bow and arrow. The archer wastes no time in pulling back his arrow, but before he could release it he widens he starts freaking out when he sees two arms growing out of both sides of his body. "What the- AAH!"

Robin ignores the screams that are caused by her clutch on the soldier as she gives any soldier that comes near her the same treatment until they fall unconscious.

Any of them that tried to go after the Nami, Usopp and Chopper during the fight were met with a foot to the face courtesy of the chef.

"Way to go Sanji! Just how I planned!" Usopp says as he keeps his body hidden from behind a tree with Chopper and Nami with him.

Sanji turn to him in irritation, after he gives a white beret a roundhouse kick to the jaw. "Shut up! I'm protecting Nami!"

"Keep it up Sanji!" Nami says with a cute grin that motivates their blond crew mate to keep the three of them safe.

Needless to say, Rose is having the most fun out of them all in this fight, as she soars in the air so that she's on the same level as her enemies, and punches and kicks any opponent that gets close to her. When she sees a sword about to strike her, she smirks as she unsheathes her sword and blocks him off. As she's busy fighting off her enemy, two more white berets, who are gliding towards her on two separate clouds, are heading towards her with their weapons ready.

Rose ducks to dodge the sword her opponent tried to give her then whacks him in the face as hard as she could with the back of the blade to knock him out. She gives sideways glances to the two men coming towards her and doesn't move. Instead, she only smirks before she manipulates her wind to push the two cloud streams they're riding on up above her.

The soldiers widen their eyes in horror when they see that her wind also morphed them together, so that they're on a collision course with each other. They try to stop themselves from colliding, but they were going too fast to stop them from crashing with one another and falling off the cloud stream.

Conis and Pagaya could only stare dumbfounded at the sight of a small group of pirates defeating their island's law enforcement as if it was child's play.

"I can't believe how they're fighting against them…" Pagaya says with his daughter silently nodding as the Blue Sea dwellers finish up their fight.

Once the last one was taken down, Zoro sheathes his sword while he turns to the navigator. "How much money do we have anyway?"

"About 500 thousand beli." Nami says as she sighs in frustration of how the situation got worse.

Rose widens her eyes at the answer as she sheathes her own sword. "You only got that much for the poses I gave you? I thought these kinds of things were valuable."

Nami twitches an eyebrow at the complaint as she moves away from the tree. "If they weren't stolen marine poses then I could've sold them for more!" She shakes her head before she points to the ship. "Forget that! Let's get out of here while we can!"

The captain of the white berets, who is lying on the ground to recover from Luffy's punches, smirks at the suggestion as he slowly sits up. "It's too late for that now..."

The crew warily watch the bruised up man as he slowly stands up and makes their situation clear. "With this crime you have all become second class criminals. Instead of dealing with us white berets, your judgement will be passed onto the priests of the Upper Yard! No matter how much you cry or scream, I can assure you they won't show you any kind of mercy!"

Usopp, Nami and Chopper shiver in fright of the threat as they watch him, and the rest of his men, army crawl away from the beach to report the crew's crimes.

It only took a moment for everyone to process what just happened before Luffy breaks the silence. "Man, those guys are weird."

"Now's not the time for that Luffy!" Usopp says before he looks to see that Conis and Pagaya have already moved ten feet away from them. "What are you doing?!"

"We can't help you now that you're second class criminals." Conis says as she and her father stay at the distance.

"You don't need to go that far!" Nami says before she sighs in defeat. "Whatever, looks like our break is over."

"But what about the adventure?" Luffy asks before Nami whacks him on the head.

"Our lives are more important here!"

Robin lightly giggles at the squabble before she looks at the ship. "I agree, we should go before the priests tear us limb from limb."

"Don't say that!" Chopper and Usopp cry out at the same time.

Zoro looks to the ship then turns back to the crew. "How are we supposed to get out of here?"

Everyone, but Rose, freezes at the question, because they were so worried about getting up, that they never considered how they were going to get back to the blue sea.

Sanji turns to Conis and Pagaya and calls out to them. "Conis-chan, is there any way we can leave the island safely?"

Conis hesitantly gets closer to the crew before she answers them. "You need to get back to the white sea that you started on, and then head to the far east to a place called cloud end. I don't think you should try though, with your new criminal status it will be really dangerous."

Nami grins at her worry before she starts heading to the ship. "It'll be fine, we're used to being chased like this. It's better if we just set sail. Thanks for everything."

Robin follows Nami to the ship while Luffy turns to Conis' dad. "Hey mister, can we take some of those lobsters to go?"

Pagaya nods to the suggestion. "Of course."

"Perfect, I'll make the lunch boxes for everyone." Sanji says with a small grin.

Usopp goes up to the native man with an eager look in his eyes. "Can I borrow some dials to help fix the ship too?"

"Absolutely, come with me." Pagaya leads the three boys back to his home, along with Conis, while most of the crew starts heading for the ship.

Rose however, doesn't move from her spot as she looks from the group heading to Conis' house to the others that are climbing aboard the Merry. _*Either I join the boys on their fight through the trials or I go with Nami's group to the altar…*_

She glances towards the Merry's figurehead for a moment, before she flies up to catch up to Nami's group to protect the ship against any priests that approach them. Once she's on the deck, she silently looks back on the sky island and scowls at what she knows what will come next. As she thinks about the future events that are to come, she can't help but grow fearful. Fearful of not only what Eneru will pull when he learns of her aura, but also about not knowing what she can do to keep the crew from learning about her strange aura. And if they do find out, how she can make an excuse for it without revealing her secret.

Chopper, who's the closest one to Rose, as he also looks out at the fun island they were on, jolts when he feels a light cold breeze, that's even more chilling than when Rose is sad, brushing through his fur. He looks over to Rose to see her gripping the railing with both hands, but her face shows no signs of her anxiety. "Are you ok?"

Rose snaps out of her daze, which also cancels her mood breeze, and smiles at the reindeer. "Yea, why?"

"You made a cold breeze again."

She raises an eyebrow at the comment, because she knows that she's not feeling sad, and shrugs it off. "My power must be on the fritz again, but don't worry about it. All that matters right now is us getting out of here."

Chopper nods in agreement as they get to work on getting the ship to depart, all without knowing that the same speedy shrimp that brought the Merry to the island from the gate, is swimming right below them to get ready to kidnap them.

* * *

As soon as the four priests make it back to their god's shrine, in an island cloud high above the Upper Yard, the four men were met with their wingless leader smirking in delight as he lazily relaxes on his throne with a handmaiden feeding him grapes.

Once the pale, muscular, long eared, man on the throne sees his followers, he waves for the woman to leave as he sits cross legged on his seat. "I know all of you have sensed that strange mantra. What can you tell me of it?"

The four priests only kneel before their god before Shura speaks up. "After you've set the lightning bolt on the target, we sensed someone hanging around the Upper Yard. This mantra was so strong, it was nothing that we have ever sensed before. What really surprised us though, was whoever it was threw a tornado at us."

Eneru raises an eyebrow at the report as he scowls at the thought of a new powerful person in the area. _*So this being can create tornadoes... It could be another god or a demon...*_

He looks to his four followers, who are still kneeling before him, and tries to learn more of the situation. "Do you know what it looked like?"

Ohm slowly shakes his head as he keeps his head down. "No, we caught a glimpse of a few people leaving the island while we were trapped, but we couldn't pinpoint which one was the culprit. We believe that the mantra holder is one of the blue sea pirates that entered Skypiea illegally today."

The shirtless god nods off at the explanation before his playful smirk returns. "In that case, I'll leave you four to pass judgement on all of them. I received word that the pirates became second class criminals, so they're being sent to the Upper Yard."

The four priests smirk at the news of the prey that they get to battle with before Gedatsu lifts his head up. "When we find out who the tornado maker is, what shall we do with them?"

Eneru chuckles at the question before he answers it as if it's a simple matter. "Test its strength in the trial. If it's strong then bring it to me, but if it's as weak as the humans then feel free to kill it."

TO BE CONTINUED


	29. Chapter 29

As Nami watches Luffy, Usopp, and Sanji reach Conis' house with the two natives, she can't help but worry about the crew's new situation as second class criminals. "They'd better get back quick…"

"Are these priests really that tough?" Zoro asks as he pulls the anchor out of the water.

Rose looks down at the crew from the crow's nest, where she's ready to release the sails at any moment. "From what we heard, these guys took down almost an entire pirate crew without breaking a sweat."

Chopper tenses up at the thought before he looks back at the island. "Really?!"

Before she can answer, the boat begins to shake and starts being slightly lifted.

"What's going on?!" Nami asks as she grabs onto the railing to keep herself from falling.

"The shrimp that brought us here came back for us." Robin says, as if it's a regular thing, while she holds onto the railing beside her.

Rose widens her eyes at the answer and looks down to see that the archaeologist's right, because the white waters under the ship have been replaced by the back of a giant, pink, shrimp. _*Here we go…*_

She grips onto the edge of the crow's nest to keep her balance when the ship starts moving away from the beach, and to the Upper Yard.

Zoro grits his teeth as he regains his balance and calls up to the wind girl. "ROSE, GET THE OTHERS BACK TO THE ISLAND!"

Nami widens their eyes at the order before she turns to the swordsman. "Wait, what about you?!"

"I'm staying to take on the priests."

"That's crazy!" Chopper says while Rose looks back at the cloud island.

When the brunette sees what's following them close behind, she immediately rejects the idea. "That plan's not gonna work with these guys on our tail!"

The others follow her gaze and share an equally shocked look when they see dozens of green fanged eels, that are larger than the ship, following behind with one jumping as high as twenty feet in air at a time.

Robin blinks at the sea creatures before she looks at the island they left behind. "If she tries to fly us off the ship then I doubt the eels would have a problem with eating us."

"Don't say that! What if we take down the shrimp?!" Chopper asks, but Zoro's already ahead of him as he jumps off the front of the ship and onto the head of the shrimp with two swords out.

Rose goes down to join him as she takes out her sword. Once she lands on the head, she tries to stab the shrimp's head multiple times along with Zoro, but the shell is too hard for either of them to leave a crack in it.

"Damn, this isn't working." Zoro says as he stops to see that they didn't even make a scratch on its head.

Rose looks ahead to the green land that the shrimp's taking them, and brings both her and Zoro back onto the ship. "Looks like we're being sent for heaven's judgement."

"So we're going back to the island after all..." Nami says in defeat as the shrimp reaches the Upper Yard.

The eels stop following them as the boat is dragged through the island's river until they reach a lake, where a sacrificial altar in the middle of the water is waiting for them.

"We're being sacrificed?!" Chopper asks in fright as their kidnapper brings the ship to the top of the altar.

Rose blinks at the gentle drop off as she watches the shrimp leave them alone with nobody to guard them. "It doesn't look like they're worried about us leaving."

"That's because of the sky sharks." Robin says as she points to the rest of the water, where numerous striped sharks' dorsal fins are popping out of the water in preparations of catching their prey.

Nami flinches at the sharks then looks around at the forest that's too far for them to jump from their location. "We could still get out of here with Rose's wind, but the ship..."

Zoro uses a rope ladder to climb off the boat, and sees that the bottom of the ship was damaged from the dangerous trip. "It doesn't look like we can get far with the Merry like this. Chopper, can you see if you can fix it?"

Chopper nods to the request while the navigator looks at him in confusion. "Then what are you going to do?"

Zoro smirks at the question before he looks at the island. "I'm going to the island to look for the fake god."

The redhead looks at the smirking man in utter shock as she runs behind the mast, in case the god heard him. "Don't call him fake! You'll piss him off!"

The swordsman smirks at her worry as he looks to the island. "I don't believe in god so why should I care?"

"Wow." Chopper stares at the arrogant swordsman in awe while Nami silently prays for forgiveness.

Rose chuckles at his confidence before she looks to the island. "Just give me a sec and I'll send you over there with my wind."

Zoro shakes his head at the offer before he points to a vine that on a tree, that's close to the edge of the island. "Thanks, but no thanks. Robin, can you get me that vine?"

Robin nods as she summons up an arm on the tree to lower not just that vine, but two more and pushes it towards the ship. "Mind if I come along too?"

"No problem, just don't get in my way." Zoro says as he catches the vines for them.

"You too Robin?!" Nami asks with Robin nodding.

"This altar is at least a thousand years old. I'm really curious about the history of this place." The archaeologist grins at the navigator as she points to the land. "There could even be hidden treasure and material we can use to fix the ship."

Nami perks up the mention of treasure and grins at the island, that she was afraid of just a moment ago. "In that case I'm in!"

"You're serious?!" Chopper asks when Nami turns to him with beli in her eyes.

"Of course, we need to learn about the history!"

The reindeer sweat drops at her change in attitude, but he doesn't comment on it as he turns to the astronomer. "Are you going too?"

She shakes her head as she digs into her bag for her camera. "No, I'm gonna stay here and help with repairs."

Nami nods to the plan as she points to the whistle for the sky knight, that's hanging onto the mast. "Alright, you can use the sky knight whistle if you need it."

Rose gives her a thumbs up as she grabs her camera while the three explorers take a vine.

Chopper tilts his head at the wind girl, who's getting ready to take a picture, while the others don't notice.

Zoro grip on his vine as his clear his throat. Once he's ready, he pulls back and swings on the vine while he yells out as if he's Tarzan.

The wind girl bites the inside of her cheek, to hold back from laughing, as she takes a picture while Nami and Robin follow him until they land on the island.

Once the three of them are safely on land, they look back to the ship.

"Take care, don't let the priests kill you." Robin says as if what she said wasn't scary.

"Don't say that Robin!" Nami says before she waves Rose and Chopper off. "We'll be back soon!"

"Don't worry about us! Be careful!" Chopper says as he waves them off with Rose as she remains quiet.

Once the three of them are out of their sight, Chopper grabs a hammer along with some nails. "Where should we start first?"

"The outside of the ship could use some work. You can go ahead, I need to get another hammer." Rose says as she leaves her bag by the railing and goes inside while Chopper heads down the rope ladder, so he can assess the damage.

He knits his eyebrows at the sight of the damage of not only the bottom of the ship, but also a few holes on the outside of the boat. He grabs some lumber to patch one of the holes when he drops the hammer.

He tried to catch it, but even when he changed into heavy point it was out of his reach. The tool quickly falls down the stairs, but instead of hitting the water, it stops at the final step. He gulps when he sees the sharks that are close to the bottom step.

He looks up to see if Rose is outside yet, but he doesn't see her. He doesn't want to risk a shark trying to eat it, so he cautiously steps down the stairs. When he's close enough to reach for it, he struggles to grab it while keeping his eyes on the waters for the sky sharks.

Just when his fingers touch the tool, he widens his eyes when a sky shark jumps out of the water for him. "AAAH!"

He keeps screaming as he grabs the hammer, and makes a run for it to narrowly dodge the fish. Another one jumps out high enough to catch the reindeer as he opens his jaws for his prey, but instead of receiving a meal, he got a flying side kick to the nose from a wind girl.

Chopper stops running when he reaches the top of the stairs, and turns around in shock to see Rose laughing in triumph, as the scared sky shark swims for its life. "It really is true!"

The reindeer blinks at the statement as he tilts his head in confusion. "What's true?"

Rose grins back at the reindeer as she lands next to him, and points to her freckled nose. "If you hit a shark in the nose, they go running no matter how big they are."

"R-really?!"

She nods as she looks over the doctor. "Are you hurt anywhere doc?"

Chopper shake his head before he turns to the ship. "I'm ok, but we should get started."

"Ok, which part needs-?!" She cuts herself off when a shadow overcasts the two of them.

"You two are the only sacrifices?"

The two of them turn around, and look up to see Shura smirking at them from the back of his bird.

Rose slowly steps in front of scared doctor, as she clenches her fists, and quietly speaks. "Doc, get on the ship and make sure the whistle's close…"

The reindeer perks up at the reminder of the sky knight's whistle, that's still hanging on the mast, and rushes to climb on the rope ladder.

"And what do you think you're doing?" Shura asks his bird's mouth begins to heat up, but before he can scorch anything, the bird gags from a strong gust of wind hitting him straight in the stomach, and sends both him and his master flying up.

Shura looks down to see that the freckled girl is doing it by turning her right arm into a gust of air. She stops when they're above the ship, and flies to their level with a smirk. "As much as I find a fire breathing bird badass, I won't hold back in a sky battle, so choose your next moves very carefully."

He blinks at the confident wind girl in front of him when he feels the same unique aura that he sensed earlier coming from his opponent. His shock changes to sadistic delight as he grips his javelin. "So you're the mantra holder. Fuza!"

The bird knew exactly what his rider wanted, so he activated the heat dial in his mouth and breathed fire directly at her. However, Rose pulls her arms in front of her, and pushes out a strong enough gust of wind to put out the flames.

 _*Compared to Ace's fire, this is nothing!*_ She keeps her confidence up from the thought as she turns her arms into air and shoots it at him, but he easily dodges.

Shura starts heating his javelin up with his dial while Fuza charges towards her. "Even if your mantra's weird, I can still predict your moves!"

He jabs his red tipped weapon up just as Rose is about to fly over him, and would've got a hit in if his javelin didn't go through her stomach.

"What?!" He couldn't recover to the shock in time, before Rose blasts her wind to slam both the priest and the bird to a tree.

Fuza stumbles down for a moment before he shakes his head, and flies off just in time to dodge the wind girl's kick.

The pirate barely had enough time to turn her arm into air once more, as she had to move away to dodge the javelin.

The priest smirks at the enjoyable battle he's having, as the two enemies continuously dodge each other's moves. "So you're the same as Eneru."

The wind girl scoffs at the comparison as she narrows her eyes at him, and she blasts her wind at him but he easily avoids it. "Don't compare me to that almighty bastard!"

Shura widens his eyes at the insult before anger begins to take over him. "What did you say?!"

She blocks Fuza's flames with the wind coming out of one hand, while the bird charges at her. Just when Shura's about to try stabbing her again, his weapon failed because of Rose's sword blocking him.

The wind girl pushes him off and grits her teeth as she charges at him with her sword in hand. "You heard me! I've seen what Eneru does to this island and it disgusts me! He's nothing but a fucking tyrant with a god complex!"

Shura blocks her barrage of sword attacks on him, and slightly widens his eyes when he sees that she's using the back end of the blade instead of the sharp edge. _*What the-?! Has she not been trained properly?!*_

He snaps out of it when Rose axe kicks Fuza on top of the head. The furious bird stumbles down from the blow, but he quickly regains altitude as he shoots flames at her, but she easily blocks them.

The priest glares at the girl as both sides go back into a battle of dodging the others moves. While Shura and Fuza dodge the blunt side of the pirate's katana, the priest thinks back on when they were attacked by a tornado. When he remembers how it was another twister that destroyed the one they were trapped in, he realizes that this girl has compassion for others.

He smirks at the weakness he discovered as he glances down at the ship where her crew mate is nervously watching the fight with the whistle in hand. "You know, I think it's time to finish the trial of string."

Rose raises an eyebrow at the announcement as she pulls her arms back for another swing, but before she can strike, her body completely stiffens up. She widens her eyes in shock as she tries to move her body, but it's as if it's frozen in midair with her wind holding her up. _*Crap, he must've set the cloud strings up when we were fighting!*_

The priest chuckles at her predicament as he starts heading towards the ship. "I'm sure Eneru would love to hear your opinion of him when I hand you over to him. Still, I'm kind of disappointed. Even with your power, you can't hold a candle to Eneru. At least he has the sense to ally with the strong."

The wind girl widens her eyes at their move towards the ship, before she frantically blows wind out of her body to slowly expand the cloud strings far enough to free herself. "Doc, get out of there!"

The reindeer, who was watching the fight the whole time, flinches as he watches the priests descending to the same level as the ship and quickly blows the whistle for the sky knight.

Shura and Fuza ignore the whistle as the bird's mouth begins to heats up. Fuza didn't hesitate to breathe his flames towards the Merry, but what neither enemy was expecting was the wind girl to escape the cloud strings, and fly in front of the incoming fire.

Rose holds both of her arms out in front of her, but isn't quick enough to stop the flames to strike her arms for a moment, before her wind repels the flames and sends Fuza flying up with his rider.

"Rose!" Chopper worriedly calls out to his crew mate, who received various first degree burns from her fingertips to her elbows from taking the blow, just before he sees some embers flying onto the deck.

The reindeer rushes to put out the flames while the wind girl furiously flies after the priest.

"Big mistake, you son of a bitch!" Without even thinking, Rose turns both of her burnt arms into strong gusts of wind and sends them after the priest from various directions.

Shura widens his eyes at the gusts, that he can barely see, as they fly all over the place, so he can't predict where they'll strike from.

Fuza can barely dodge half of the heated wind blasts, while the rest of the aerial attacks manage to hit both him and Shura.

The pilot almost fell off his saddle from an air attack to the side before Fuza had to fly up in an attempt to escape. Shura looks back to see the wind girl coming after them with a menacing look in her eyes that almost made him shiver. _*Is this really the same girl that we've been fighting?! She looks like she won't hesitate to kill-*_

He snaps out of his thoughts when he senses another presence and moves his javelin to his left, just in time to block the javelin that was about to stab him courtesy of the sky knight.

"I think you had enough fun." Gan Fall says as he pulls back, but stops when he sees the furious girl flying at their level, high above the island, with airy arms.

He doesn't say anything about the seemingly arm-less girl as he points his javelin at the priest while Rose glares at the enemy.

Shura clicks his tongue at the disadvantage, when he senses a large number of mantras in the distance. _*Even the Shandorians are running amok here. Dammit, I have no choice. I need to protect god's land above all else…*_

He digs his heels into Fuza's sides as a sign to make a retreat. The bird gets the message as he charges at the duo, but before they could react he breathes fire at Rose to keep her distracted while Shura jabs his weapon at the knight.

Gan Fall quickly blocks the blow, but he failed to notice that during the strike Shura managed to sneakily loop his invisible cloud string around his ankle. Once Fuza flew past the knight, the string around his ankle pulled him off his bird and starts getting dragged mid air by the priest.

Rose blocks off the last of the flames, and widen her eyes to see Gan Fall dragged by Fuza with his own bird flying after them.

She flies after the chase just when Shura cuts the string that's holding Gan Fall. He smirks at the falling knight, that's heading to the ocean twenty feet below them, before he lifts his head to the logia user. "Don't think you've won! I promise Eneru will want to take care of you personally!"

Rose clenches her teeth at the threat as she fires a wind blast at them, but he avoids it by ducking into the woods.

While Gan Fall's bird rushes to catch his master, the wind girl goes into the woods to fly after the priest. However, when she makes it into the forest, she finds that there's not a trace of her enemy anywhere. She growls at his retreat as she lands on her feet, leans against a tree, and starts panting from exhaustion while her burnt arms return to normal. "Damn, I've always hated those bastards..."

"Hated who?" Rose flinches at Robin's voice behind her and turns around to see her, Nami, and Zoro approaching her.

She nervously looks back and points to a random direction. "Priests, one of them tried attacking the ship, but the sky knight and I fought him off. He got away before we could catch him."

She flinches at the searing pain in her arms from pointing, and looks at her hands and forearms to see that half of the skin is bright red from the burns.

Nami widens her eyes at the marks that look painful to even look at. "What happened?"

Rose shrugs off her worries and gives them a small grin. "The bird that we saw with the priests earlier can shoot flames out of his beak. He thought he could get away with scorching the ship, but I managed to stop him. These burns aren't as bad as they look."

Robin giggles at her carefree attitude for her injuries. "You should still get them looked at unless you want them to get infected and amputated."

"Don't go saying stuff like that that." Zoro says while Nami grimaces at the thought.

Rose however, tilts her head at the thought and looks down at her arms curiously. "Can wind arms even get amputated?"

"DON'T ASK THAT! JUST GO SEE CHOPPER!" Nami yells as she grabs the wind girl by the shoulder, and drags her to the shoreline with Zoro and Robin following.

The brunette wasted no time in flying the group back to the ship, and see that Gan Fall's bird managed to catch the knight, then brought him onto the ship for Chopper to treat his ankle.

As Chopper finishes bandaging the knight's sprained ankle, he notices the group flying towards them, and points to an empty spot next to Gan Fall. "Take a seat right there Rose. I need to bandage your arms."

She silently nods as she grins in relief of how both Chopper, Gan Fall, and the ship's damages were minimal from the fight.

Once Rose's feet touch the floor, she allows her exhaustion to take over as she falls on her butt and leans her back onto the railing for support.

The others blink at the girl's collapse while the doctor rushes to her with a bottle of burn lotion and a roll of white bandages.

Zoro looks around, and sees that even the deck has a few burnt marks. "What kind of a priest uses fire as a weapon?"

"The asshole kind." Rose says as she gives Chopper her hand.

He gently holds her wrist and narrows his eyes on the burns on her thin forearms. "The burns aren't as bad as I thought they'd be. Good thing you pushed the flames off your hands right away or the damage would've been a lot worse."

Gan Fall blinks at the analysis as he turns to the exhausted girl. "What kind of power do you have?"

Rose quietly sighs as she allows Chopper to apply the ointment on her burns and bandage them up. "I ate a devil fruit that turned my body into air. Sorry if I scared you when my limbs were wind."

He shakes his head as he grins at the two pirates. "Don't be, I should be thanking your friend for treating my injury. If I'm being honest, we're lucky to just receive these kinds of injuries. The priests are really strong."

The wind girl chuckles at the comment as she watches Chopper bandage each of her fingers separately so that she can still use her hands. "I agree with you there."

"HEY GUYS, IT'S THE MERRY!" The group freezes at Luffy's voice while Nami, Zoro and Robin look to see Luffy, Sanji and Usopp sailing to the lake on a tiny crow raft.

Sanji looks at the ship with hearts in his eyes as he waves for the girls. "Nami-swaan~! Robin-chwaan~! Rose-chwaan~! No need to fear, I passed the trial of love for you all!"

Nami sighs in relief that they made it, and throws down a rope ladder for them. "Guys, come up!"

The bruised-up trio wastes no time in getting on board, but once they were on the ship they were surprised to see the burnt patches on the deck.

"What happened to the ship now?!" Usopp asks as he cautiously steps onto the fragile floor.

"A crazy priest tried attacking the ship." Zoro says.

"A priest did this to Rose-chan?!" Sanji asks as he looks at her arms in sorrow.

Rose twitches an eyebrow at his worry when she looks at the boys' bruises and burns that are all over their bodies. "Forget about me, you guys look like you went through a minefield!"

"She's right, sit down and let me heal you!" Chopper commands as he grabs his bag and starts working on Usopp's injuries.

"What kind of trial did you guys go through anyway?" Nami asks as she looks down at the crow boat that they sailed on.

Luffy chuckles at the adventure they had, as he sits cross legged next to the wind girl, while the doctor gets to work on his injuries. "We went through a trial with this weird ball guy. It was nuts, he could predict what moves we were going to pull on him."

Rose nods to the explanation as she looks at her hands. "Our priest had the same ability too."

"That's called mantra." Gan Fall says which makes every pirate turn their attention to him. "It's a special ability that both the priests and their god have. As you've witnessed, it predicts a person's moves and it can also sense someone's location even if they're hidden from plain sight."

Usopp, Nami and Chopper shiver from the thought while Robin looks at him in confusion. "Do you have this kind of ability?"

He shakes his head before he looks up to the evening sky, that's getting darker by the minute from the sun setting. "Sadly, I don't have this ability. With it getting dark I'm also afraid it would be too dangerous for me to head home or for you all to sail out of here."

Sanji puffs a smoke from his cigarette before he looks to the shoreline. "I think you're right. How about we go to the shore and camp out there? If another priest shows up, it would be easier to fight there."

"Yea, let's do it!" Luffy says as he eagerly jumps off the boat to get on his raft with the excited reindeer following him.

"Quit being so casual!" Usopp says as he follows them onto the boat.

Rose chuckles at their excitement as she straps on her bag, and brings herself and the rest of the group to the shore.

As the wind girl gently sets down the elder knight, the rest of the crew gets to work on setting up the campsite.

Zoro quickly sets up a campfire that can last for hours, and Sanji begins to cook up a stew, while Nami explains to the others what she, Robin, and Zoro found out about the Upper Yard from their travels.

"So you're saying that this place was a piece of Jaya?!" Chopper asks in shock with Nami nodding.

"That means the golden city really is here!" Usopp says before he covers his mouth to stop Luffy from hearing, but with one look at the captain, he already knows that it's too late because he's beaming with enthusiasm.

"This is the kind of adventure I was looking for!" Luffy says while he's grinning from ear to ear in excitement.

Nami grins at his eagerness when she thinks about all the treasure they can get. "If you want to stay, then I have no problems with it."

"But what about the angry god?!" Usopp asks with Chopper nodding, but none of them are worried about the god.

"What kind of pirates would we be if we didn't look for treasure?" Zoro asks as he relaxes.

Gan Fall widens his eyes at their attitude. "You all can't be serious! This island is-"

He stops himself when Rose pats him on the shoulder, so he turns to see her giving him a relaxed grin. "Even if you mention how dangerous it is, they won't quit."

She looks at her excited friends with a soft smile as she leans back against a tree. "We may not look it, but we're tough. Eneru won't know what hit him."

He blinks at the young girl's confidence in her crew before he sighs in defeat. "I see."

Before he could say anything else, Sanji hands him two bowls of stew. "I made enough for both you and your bird. By the way, do you know if Conis is alright?"

Gan Fall nods at the question, about the girl he had to save from Eneru's wrath for being friends with the crew, as he places a bowl right in front of his pet. "Both Conis and her father are safe. Eneru can't go after them."

Sanji grins at the reassurance before he grabs another bowl of stew goes over to Rose. "If your hands hurt too much, I can feed it to you."

Rose doesn't hesitate to shake her head at the offer, with a blank look on her face, as she takes the bowl and ignores the mild pain in her hands. "Thanks, but I'm fine."

The chef sighs in disappointment as he goes back to his pot to distribute the meal to the rest of the crew.

As the wind girl goes through her meal, she can't help but stare up at the starry sky with worry in her eyes. With Shura escaping before she can capture him, Eneru now knows a good extent of her powers and is a threat to him. If her situation is as bad as she fears, then tomorrow is going to be a nightmare. _*Since my aura is so noticeable, I should split up from the others in the morning. If the big shots come after me then the others can get through the Hunger Games easier.*_

She chuckles at her silent joke as she sets the bowl on her lap, so that she can gently caresses her necklace with one hand, while the other is grabbing spoonfuls of stew for her. _*If anything, I can make a good guideline out of this experience for other outsiders.*_

She continues to silently eat as Robin finishes her meal, and looks up at the fire that's the stands out on the dark island. "Shouldn't we be putting the flames out? It can expose our position to the enemy."

Usopp and Luffy widen their eyes at the suggestion before the rubber man sighs in disappointment. "Did you hear that Usopp? I can't believe she wants to put out the fire."

Robin tilts her head at his disappointment when Usopp comes to her defense. "Don't be so hard on her Luffy. She's been living her life as an assassin, so she couldn't have known."

"What are you guys talking about?" The archaeologist asks while the two boys point to the bright campfire.

"When you're out camping, you need to keep the fire on all night!" Luffy says.

"Really?!" Chopper says with stars in his eyes.

Usopp nods as he smirks in pride. "Even if we die, the campfire needs to burn bright to have a perfect camping night!"

"Don't be stupid!" Nami says as she approaches them. "This forest is dangerous enough as it is! Or did you forget the priests and crazy raiders out there?!"

"I didn't forget, but we can't waste a perfect camping night either!" Luffy says.

"Even if it's dark out, they would sense us with their mantra." Rose chimes in with Gan Fall nodding in agreement.

"If the priests were to attack again they would've done so by now, so we're all safe for the time being."

Nami however, still isn't convinced that it would be safe to keep the fire going. "We could still attract wild beasts with the fire!"

"Oi Luffy, is this enough?" The group stops at Zoro's voice to see him patting a pile of lumber that's taller than him.

Luffy happily smiles at the pile of wood that can give them a fire that lasts through the entire night. "Yea, that's more than enough!"

"Not you too!" Nami says, but Sanji tries to reassure her by grabbing a branch that's on fire.

"It will be alright Nami. Wild animals are naturally afraid of fire." What the chef wasn't aware of though, was that in the darkness behind him began to glow with dozens of bright golden eyes.

Nami notices the eyes and begins to shake in fright. "You did attract a beast!"

Usopp and Chopper yelp in fright when one of the beasts come out of the shadows, to reveal a large white wolf with a scar going across his right eye.

Gan Fall widens his eyes at the creature before he tries to warn the others. "Everyone, be careful! That's a cloud wolf, these creatures are dangerous!"

The crew, except for Robin and Rose, start getting their guard up, when the wolf narrows his eyes at the group of humans as he begins growling in irritation.

Robin blinks at the growling animal before she turns to Chopper. "What's he saying Doctor-kun?"

Chopper listens closely to the angry wolf before he copies his scowl and his tone of voice in the translation. "You damn humans are keeping us up with your shouting! Shut the hell up already!"

"WHAT WAS THAT?!" Luffy and Sanji ask but Chopper flinches.

"It's not me, it's the wolf!" Chopper stops when he hears him growling again and translates. "'If you humans want to live then get out of our territory! Everything from the grass to the trees on this island belongs to-'"

The wolf's rant was cut short, when Nami's fist crash landed on his head to knock him out.

All the boys were speechless at Nami's punch as she glares at the animal she attacked. "You're not stopping me from getting the treasure!"

Rose begins to tremble as she clamps a bandaged hand over her mouth, to stop herself from laughing at the display, and avoid Nami's wrath being directed to her.

Robin sweat drops at the wind girl's urge to laugh when she hears growling all over the place and sees that the rest of the pack, that consists of dozens of wolves, starts approaching the crew.

Usopp and Chopper hug each other in fear before the sniper glares at Nami. "Why did you have to piss them off?!"

"Forget that, just think of something!"

"What do you think I can do here?!"

Before the pack can pounce on the campers, the leader wakes up and raises a paw in the air to stop them.

Chopper blinks at the growling leader before he translates for him again. "Don't bother, even if you attack all at once you're no match for her."

Nami freezes at the compliment, as she and the others see the wolf wiping his mouth with the back of his paw and a smug look on his face. "'You got a great punch babe. I like you."

Nami mirrors his smirk as they clasp hand and paw together to show the new bond they formed.

Usopp sweat drops at the new friendship before he turns to Zoro. "So they're friends now?"

"I guess so."

Luffy grins at the wolves before he throws a log into the fire. "Then let's have our campfire now!"

Most of the crew along with the entire pack howl in agreement as they join the fray, and begin to party like there's no tomorrow.

Gan Fall blinks at the new development as he watches Usopp strap on a bongo drum and starts pounding it for the music. "I can't believe they just tamed cloud wolves…"

Robin giggles at his surprise as she sits beside him and watches the party with a soft grin. "As you've seen, we're not your average pirate crew."

"I agree, you all might make it to the golden city after all." He sighs in relief, of the situation not getting worse, as he relaxes and enjoys his evening.

"Let's get this pre-gold hunting dance festival started!" Usopp says as he happily dances around the fire with the rest of the crew, except Robin and Zoro, and a line of wolves following behind as he bangs on the bongos.

Zoro chuckles at the party as he sits it out and grabs a bottle of booze, but stops when he sees the pack leader sitting next to him with a cup of wine. The two warriors stare each other down for a moment before they grin at each other, clank their drinks together, and chug it down as a sign of friendship.

Luffy copies the wolves' howling as he dances along with them, while Sanji and Chopper dance to Usopp's song about getting the gold.

Nami happily drinks a mug of liquor before she follows the party animals in the fire dance.

Rose chuckles at the fun as she dances on her own with a few wolves. She spins to the music of the howls and drums, like it's nobody's business, when she accidentally bumps into Nami.

Rose regains her balance as she catches the navigator before she could fall over. "You ok Nami?"

Nami drunkenly laughs with joy before she slings an arm around the brunette's shoulders. "Of course I am! We're gonna be rich!"

She spins around with her, with them both to laughing at the fun, before they dance along with the wolves. The navigator continues to lead them along, when she looks from the corner of her eye to see that they're getting close to where the captain's dancing.

With a mischievous glint in her brown eyes, Nami spins her and Rose again, and sneakily pushes the wind girl into Luffy's direction.

Rose yelps at the shove as she fails to regain her balance before she bumps into Luffy, and pushes them out of the dancing line.

Luffy quickly catches himself while Rose finally steadies herself. "Sorry about that Luffy."

The rubber man shrugs it off when he looks at Usopp's drum. "No worries. Hey, can you use your guitar for the party?"

She quietly sighs as she waves her bandaged hands. "Sorry, I don't think doc would want me to try with these burns. After we get the treasure, I think I can do it."

Luffy grins at the answer as he nods and motions his hand for her to follow him. "Alright, then let's party!"

Rose shyly nods as she joins him in the fire dance.

As Nami watches the two of them dancing together in the line, she grins in victory as she takes another swig of her liquor. As she keeps dancing around, she accidentally trips on her feet, but before she can fall a pair of pale arms catch her.

"Are you alright Nami-san?" The navigator looks up to see Sanji gently smiling at her as he steadies her back on her feet.

Nami blinks at the lovely, visible, blue eye staring at her before she happily smiles and wraps an arm around his shoulders. "You bet I am Sanji-kun~! Let's keep this party going~!"

"Absolutely!" Hearts swell up in the chef's eyes as he gleefully allows the redhead to bring him back into the dance.

Robin chuckles at her dancing crew mates as she, Zoro, and Gan Fall watch the party last on until every last one of them passes out.

* * *

 _On a Wednesday night, in the study of her family's study, nine year old Rose is sitting in her blue pajamas next to her mother at her desk. While her father is having a lecture, the mother-daughter pair spend the evening looking through the computer on various astronomy topics and other world theories._

 _Nights like this are one of the most treasured moments for the freckled child, for it's the only time she feels that she's learning something fun and useful, compared to what she has to sit through in school. Because of this, she's practically bouncing in her seat with her notebook in hand. "What are we going to look through this time mom?!"_

 _Her mother, Teresa, chuckles at her daughter's bubbly excitement as she tucks a strand of her straight, black, hair behind her ears and goes through the internet. "We're going to look into doppelgangers now."_

 _Rose blinks at the new word as she stares up at her pale mother. "What's a doppelganger?"_

 _"It's basically a clone of yourself. They're people who look just like you, even though they're not family." She shows her a web page of the definition of a doppelganger and pictures of look alikes as she keeps explaining. "Because of this, it could be possible that we have doppelgangers living in other worlds. This can be a way to see what your life would be like if you were born in that world."_

 _The child brightens up at the theory as she looks to Teresa with stars in her purple eyes. "You mean there's a me in the Pokémon world?!"_

 _Teresa chuckles at the question, before she ruffles her daughter's brown hair. "It's possible, but they might not look exactly like us."_

 _She points to her own purple eyes as an example. "For instance, they could have different color eyes, hair, skin color or even have scars on their body."_

 _Rose blinks at the explanation as she scratches her head to try to understand. "So, they look like us, but they're not an exact copy?"_

 _"Exactly, and since they lived different lives from us, their personalities could be different too."_

 _The little girl hums at the idea before she looks down at her notebook. "What should we do if we meet them in another world?"_

 _Teresa knits her eyebrows at the thought as she strokes her chin. "As long as we're keeping where we're from a secret then the best bet is to play it as a coincidence. I don't see any problem with making friends with them. Who knows, we could wind up becoming buddies with a ninja version of all three of us in the Naruto world."_

 _Rose chuckles at the idea as she writes down her mom's suggestion in the notebook while questions begin to swarm her mind. However, before her questions could be spoken the cuckoo clock, that's hanging on the red wall, starts chiming to tell them that it's 9:00._

 _"Bed time." Teresa says as she starts getting off the internet while her daughter childishly pouts at the clock._

 _"Oh come on, five more minutes!"_

 _Teresa chuckles at the pout as she takes her notebook and puts it in a drawer. "Sorry, but you have school tomorrow."_

 _"Can't you just home school me?! You guys teach me better stuff!"_

 _Teresa bites the inside of her cheek, to hold back from laughing at the childish outburst, as she shakes her head. "You know we can't. Tell you what though, get ready for bed now and I'll tell you a constellation story."_

 _The brunette mulls over the deal before she nods. "Ok, but can you tell me why you and dad study the comet again instead?"_

 _Her mother blinks at the compromise, for this is at least the tenth time that she asked for this story, but nonetheless she's more than happy to tell her. "Alright, get going then and I'll meet you in your room."_

 _The little girl doesn't waste any time going into the bathroom to brush her teeth, before she runs to her bedroom to see her mom seated in a chair that's next to her bed._

 _Rose practically hops onto the bed and gets in the covers, before she stares at her beautiful mother with stars in her purple eyes. "So how did it happen?"_

 _Teresa grins at her excitement as she crosses a leg over the other to get comfortable, before she thinks back to the beginning of the tale. "It all started years ago in another world. In the middle of the night, while her parents were working with a bunch of adults, a five year old girl was playing hide and seek with a group of kids all over the building. An older boy took her to an empty office and they hid behind the desk. As they sat down in their hiding spot, he showed her this crystal that he swiped from their parents. As the little girl held the gem and began to admire its beauty, a blue light began to shine into the room. Both of the children look outside saw the most amazing thing ever!"_

 _She points to the window at the other side of the room, as if the comet is actually there. "They saw an enormous blue comet, known as the Timore comet, flying across the sky! It was so bright that for a moment, the kids thought a blue sun came out!"_

 _Rose chuckles at her mom's enthusiasm as she hangs onto every word she says and keeps listening. "Both children couldn't take their eyes off the beautiful sight, as it flew across the night sky until it vanished as quickly as it came. But something strange happened after the comet left. The girl's body began to glow and then the next thing she knew, she was alone in a back alley in this very city..."_

 _Teresa's smile falls from her freckle-less face, as she looks at Rose downcast for a moment, before she puts back on a small grin. "Lucky for this child, the police found her before anything could happen. When she told them where she came from though, they had no idea where her home was. And everything from the cars to the phones were completely different from what she saw her parents using daily. That's when she realized that after seeing the Timore comet, she got sent into another world without a second thought."_

 _The adult quietly sighs at the experience before she pats her child on the head. "What your father and I want to do, is figure out the comet's power and find out where she came from. Also, we want find a way to make sure that it doesn't break up any more families."_

 _Rose blinks at the look on her mother's face, that even though holds a smile, also has a hint of sadness in her amethyst eyes. The freckled kid could do nothing more than stand up on the bed, and pull her into a hug to comfort her. "Let's do it together then."_

 _The thin woman blinks at the kid's embrace, before she chuckles and hugs her back. "Yea."_

 _She picks her up and lays her down on the bed before she tucks her in. "But until then, we have to try blending into this world. Which means you gotta go to bed."_

 _Rose sighs in disappointment of not getting any more time before she curls herself up in the blanket. "Ok, good night."_

 _"Good night love." Teresa kisses her daughter on top of her head, before she gets up and starts leaving._

 _Rose furrows her eyebrows in thought, as she remembers what she learned tonight, before she speaks up. "Hey mom, do you think doppelgangers are in every world?"_

 _Teresa freezes at the doorway from the question, and turns back to her with a curious look on her face. "Maybe, why?"_

 _"If we can't find a doppelganger in another world, then maybe that's how we can find out where she came from."_

 _Teresa slightly widens her eyes at the idea for how they can figure out where the child came from, and realizes that it could work. She gives her daughter a soft grin before she turns off the lights, to reveal the glow in the dark star stickers that are on the ceiling. "You're getting better at coming up with theories. We can test it out when we leave this world."_

 _Rose brightly grins at her theory being added to the list of things to test when they use the comet's power, before she allows herself to fall asleep under the fake stars._

* * *

In the middle of the night, with the fire finally died out, every animal, knight, and pirate are sleeping all over the ground.

Rose stays warmly bundled in her blanket as she slowly wakes up from her dream. She sits up and softly grins at how the wolves are sleeping with the humans as if they're all in the same pack, before she gets out of her blanket into her bag.

She quietly exchanges the sheet for her journal and pen. Seeing that she's the only one awake, she sees this as a good chance to update her work without any prying eyes on her. She swipes the pages until she reaches the section where she's listed the rules on what to do in another world. _*World travelling rule #5: If you meet your doppelganger or a doppelganger of someone you know, don't act like you know them. They're not the same person.*_

She quietly sighs as she finishes writing down the new guideline and chuckles at the possibility of meeting her own doppelganger. _*I wonder what kind of person my One Piece version is. Maybe she's a revolutionary or another pirate. I really hope she's not a civilian or a noble...*_

She cringes at the chance that her being in this world is ruining an innocent person's life, because they share the same face. However, until she knows who her doppelganger is she won't waste her time worrying about it.

Instead, she's going to worry about her current situation with Eneru. She gently caresses her necklace as she looks up to see that she still has a few hours before the sun rises. If Eneru is so curious about her, then she's going to have keep the fight as far away from the others as possible.

She looks to the ship to see that there's not a soul in sight, so she gets on board to go inside to drop off her journal in her room. While inside, she also changes her clothes to her black jeans, her blue jacket over her tank top, grey gloves to cover her bandages, and puts back on her dark blue sneakers.

After she puts her long, brown, hair in a ponytail, she looks in the mirror, and grins in satisfaction before she grabs a piece of paper and writes down a note. _*I'll drop this off to the crew and then head out to be the bait.*_

She nods to the plan as she slings her bag over her shoulder. When she walks out of the room, she stops in her tracks when she suddenly hears the sound of a hammer hitting something outside. "This means..."

She runs outside to confirm her suspicions and freezes in shock when she sees a small spirit at work to fix the ship.

The little, blue, ghost girl that's dressed in a raincoat, uses her wooden hammer to fix the deck of the ship before she looks at the wind girl. The spirit floats up in the air to Rose's height as she waves at the pirate with an innocent smile. "Hi Rose."

Rose snaps out of her daze and sadly smiles at her before she slowly waves back. "Hi there Merry. It's good to see you."

TO BE CONTINUED


	30. Chapter 30

The wind girl couldn't take her eyes off the childlike ghost in front of her, as she puts her note in her pocket, and steps up to Merry to get a closer look. She's completely amazed at how this ghost is the symbol of the crew's love for the ship, yet also the proof that Merry's death is coming soon. "This is just incredible."

Merry giggles at her curiosity as she floats around her. "What's the matter, Klabautermanns don't exist in your world?"

Rose widens her eyes at the question, but chuckles when she remembers that she woke up in this world on Merry herself, so there's no point in denying it. She looks back at the campsite, that's partially covered by the fog, but can still see that the crew's asleep, so she allows herself to speak freely. "There are stories of them, but I've never seen one until now. I honestly don't know where to begin."

"Ask away."

She slowly nods as she gently lays a hand on the railing as if it could break easily. "Did the keel reinforcing do anything to help?"

Merry loses her smile at the question before she looks to the mast. "It helped ease the pain, but the knock up stream was just too much for me..."

Rose's face fell at the answer before she lowers her head. "I see, I'm sorry then. I swear I tried to-"

She stops herself when she feels a cool mist hit her head and raises her head to see that Merry's hitting her head with her hammer repeatedly, but the ghostly tool just goes through her. "Don't apologize! I don't want that!"

Rose blinks at her childish tantrum and quietly sighs in defeat. "Alright, then what do you want?"

Merry stops trying to hit her before she pouts. "I want you guys to enjoy every moment you have left with me." She looks towards the crew with a soft frown before she turns to the wind girl. "In order to do that, the others can't know that my adventure's ending soon or they'll get upset. Can you please keep it a secret?"

Rose chuckles at the request before she gives her a thumbs up. "Who do you think you're talking to here? Compared to my secrets, yours is easy to protect."

Merry happily smiles at the promise. "Thank you."

"I should be the one thanking you for letting me sail with you." She looks to the crew and spots the sniper starting to stir. "Hey, would it be alright if Usopp talks to you? It would mean a lot to him."

Merry nods as she watches Usopp move around in his sleep. "Yea, I'd like to speak with him too. How are you going to explain me being here?"

"Leave that to me. You just act like we haven't spoken yet." She floats off the altar, and goes to the crew while Merry gets to work on fixing the outside of the ship.

Just when Usopp's about to wake up, he feels his body feeling as light as a feather. When he's fully awake, he widens his eyes to see that he's floating towards the shoreline.

He gets ready to scream, but before he could Rose flies next to him, clamps a hand over his mouth, and speaks quietly. "Relax, it's just me. Nod if you won't yell."

He nods when they land at the shoreline, that's covered in fog, so Rose releases his mouth. He takes a deep breath to calm down before he looks at her in confusion. "What are you doing in the middle of the night?"

"I saw something strange on the Merry."

"What?" He goes into his satchel and grabs a telescope. When he looks through the glass, he drops his jaw when he sees a little girl floating outside of the ship.

"Oh my god, it's a-" Rose covers his mouth again when she sees him getting too loud.

"Calm down or you'll wake the others. What did you see?" She lets go so that he can whisper loudly in fear.

"There's a ghost on the ship!"

Rose widens her eyes at the explanation as if it's news to her. "You're serious?! What's the ghost doing?!"

He looks through the telescope to see that she's fixing the holes on the outside of the ship, that were roughly patched. He raises an eyebrow at the sight before he turns to Rose. "It looks like it's fixing the ship, but why?"

Rose shrugs as she looks around the proclaimed holy land. "Even though this land was originally from Jaya, a 'god' lives here. Maybe the god gave the land holy properties over time."

Usopp can only tilt his head at the weird explanation. "What does that mean?"

"It means that Merry's spirit might be able to come to life on holy land."

The sniper widens his eyes at the possibility and looks back at the little ghost. "You're saying that's Merry?!"

Rose nods before she looks back at the campsite, that's far enough to keep the crew out of their hearing range and sees that they're still sleeping. "Yea, let's go ask her."

Usopp silently nods as she brings them onto the deck of the boat just when the little ghost floats up to the railing.

Merry tilts her head at the pair before she smiles at the group. "Hi there."

Usopp silently gulps as he walks up to the spirit and tries to touch her, but his hand immediately goes through her. "Merry, is that really you?"

Merry giggles at the question as she floats next to him. "That's right! I'm glad I could talk to you like this Usopp."

Once the sniper knows who she is, he starts brightly smiling at the sight. "I can't believe it's you! This is awesome!"

"How long can you stay like this?" Rose asks with an excited grin on her face.

Merry grins at her friend's acting skills before she looks up at the dark sky. "I only have until sunrise. I'm working to fix up some things before we head down."

Usopp blinks at the explanation before he looks at the deck to see that it looks almost brand new. "Can I help? I know my repair work isn't the best but-"

He stops when he feels something cool on his head and looks to see that Merry's patting him on the head. "You did a good job. Your repairs helped me get this far, and for that I want to thank you. I'd love to work with you."

"Merry..." Usopp nearly tears up at the praise before he starts grinning with determination. "Alright, let's make you as good as new! I'll go get my tools!"

He runs inside to get his tools while Rose softly grins at the exchange.

The wind girl turns to the spirit before she waves at her. "I'll leave you two to catch up. I should get going before the others wake up."

Merry softly frowns at her friend's recklessness before she floats in front of her. "Can you promise me something before you go?"

"What is it?"

The ghost looks to the direction of the sleeping crew, who are barely visible from the fog. "Try to give them a chance."

Rose widens her eyes at the request, because she knows that she means telling them her secret. She quietly sighs as she follows her gaze to their friends. "I can't now, but when the time's right I will."

Merry happily grins at the agreement before she starts getting back to the damage. "Thank you, and thanks for playing your guitar for me. I had fun."

Rose chuckles at the gratitude before she starts floating. "My pleasure, when we get off the island I'll play for you again. I'll see you later Merry."

The two friends wave each other off, as if they'll see each other the next morning, and part ways for the night.

As Rose flies towards the campsite, with her back turned to the boat, her purple eyes begin to tear up from knowing that Merry won't last much longer. She shakes her head to try to stop herself from crying, but the tears won't stop falling so she wipes away them away with the back of her hands. She takes a deep breath through her nose to try to calm down, but she only stops when she hears laughter from the ship.

She blinks away the tears, and looks back at the ship to see Usopp and Merry happily working together to fix the vessel like they've been doing it for years. Her sadness melts away from the lovely scene and is replaced with a small happiness that they could share a good memory together.

With that in mind, she gets back to the task at hand by stealthily flying back to the campsite without waking up anyone else. She pulls the note, that she has for the crew, out when she lands on the campsite and approaches her sleeping captain. As she stands over Luffy, who's sprawled on the ground and snoring up a storm, she looks him over a good spot to plant the note on him.

She kneels next to him to put the note in his hat, but fails to notice a rubber hand coming up until it grabs her hand. She widens her eyes at the grab, but before she could react she's pulled down into his embrace.

Rose grunts at the pull as she catches herself by hitting her hands on the ground on the opposite sides of Luffy's head. When she finds her face hovering above Luffy's sleeping face, her freckled cheeks begin to turn red before she waves a hand in front of his face to make sure that he's truly asleep. _*How the hell does he do this every time I'm around him in his sleep?!*_

She shakes her head before she pulls herself free, and puts the note in his hat. She looks down at the cute, sleeping, captain once more before she gently pats his hat onto his head. _*Good luck captain.*_

She gets up and rapidly steps away from him to avoid the risk of getting grabbed again. With one last look to the crew, she flies off into the dark forest with her guard up as high as possible in case the priests and the fake god approach her.

* * *

On the outside of god's shrine, up above the Upper Yard, Shura, Ohm, and Gedatsu are summoned back after they fought off half of the raiders that invaded their land.

Gedatsu keeps biting his lower lip, which makes him remain silent while Shura blames Ohm for not getting rid of everyone.

"I'm telling you that Eneru's calling us here because you let Wiper live."

Ohm smirks at the accusation as he calmly fights back. "Oh really? Because I think he's wondering how one of his priests failed to catch the mantra holder with his useless strings."

That managed to push the pilot over the edge because he quickly unsheathes his javelin and goes to pierce his head, but Ohm easily blocks off the weapon with his sword.

All three priests jump back from each other and get in a stance. Some of the clergymen tiredly watch the scene unfold, because it happens so constantly that there's no point in trying to stop them.

Shura narrows his eyes on both priests as he keeps his javelin up. "So, you think my strings are useless?! Then I won't mind showing you just how useless they are in my trial!"

Ohm scoffs at the threat at he keeps his sword out. "Oh please, my trial of iron will be able to take care of you easily."

Gedatsu releases his lower lip and crosses his wrists. "Neither of your trials are worth anything. If you want a real challenge, then I'll show you my trial of swamp!"

An obese winged man in a toga, with wavy black hair flowing to his shoulders, scowls at the threats as he steps up before another fight breaks out. "That's enough! Don't forget that we're in god's shrine!"

"Shut up Yama! If Eneru cared, then he should-!" Shura's rant was cut short when without warning, Eneru jumps in out of nowhere to kick down the three priests.

"Yaahahaha!" Eneru laughs in triumph as he flips onto his throne and lazily relaxes in his seat. "You all still need training."

The three priests groan at the sneak attack as they slowly stand up. Their master sighs in disappointment as he rests his chin on his fist. "Really now, it's bad enough that Satori failed to get rid of the pirates. Do you all want to become failures as well?"

"What was that?!" Gedatsu asks, as he glares at him.

"Did you just call us here to trash talk us?" Ohm asks, but Eneru just chuckles at their anger.

"Not at all, sit down and we can talk."

The three priests sit cross legged while Eneru moves his attention to Shura. "So, you survived a fight with the tornado maker. Tell us why you couldn't capture it."

Shura clicks his tongue at the reminder of his failure before he explains himself. "She has the same kind of power you have, but with wind instead of lightning. I tried to stab her, but my javelin went through her."

Ohm raises an eyebrow at the explanation. "The mantra holder is a girl?"

Shura nods as he tightens his fists. "Yea, and a young one too. She transformed both her arms into strong gusts of wind and nearly knocked me off Fuza. Gan Fall showing up didn't help either."

Eneru chuckles at the excuse as he keeps asking him questions about the mantra holder. "Can this girl sense mantra as we do?"

He shakes his head. "I don't think so, but she acted like she knew you."

The god chuckles at the comment. "Oh she did? I wonder if she knew about the gold."

"What does the gold have to do with this?" Ohm asks with Eneru clearing it up.

"The pirates are staying on the island to go after the treasure."

Gedatsu widens his eyes at the announcement. "You can't be serious!"

Eneru nods as he senses the strange aura moving on the Upper Island and acts as if it's no big deal. "I am, but since this land was once from the blue sea it shouldn't be a surprise for them to already know about it. In any case, it looks like the girl went off on her own for a head start."

The priests freeze at what he just said and realize that he's right because they can sense the odd aura moving alone.

Their master chuckles at their surprise as he decides to make things interesting. "The rest of the crew should be following suit too, along with the Shandorians coming again tomorrow. Because of this, all of Upper Yard will be open to you all tomorrow. All the rules are cancelled, so do whatever you like. Take this time to prepare yourselves."

The three of them nod in agreement as they get up and walk off to get their trials set up.

Eneru chuckles at the brief departure as he continues to sense the strange mantra on the Upper Yard. He raises an eyebrow when he realizes that she's not going in the direction of the golden city. "Where is she going?"

He hums in curiosity when he thinks on what's in her direction and sadistically grins in joy as he starts going off on his own. "This will be interesting. It looks like there will be six survivors by the end of this game."

* * *

The sun has just finished rising into the morning sky when Gan Fall and the Straw Hats begin to awaken with the wolves having already left for the woods.

Chopper rubs the sleep out of his eyes and looks to see that Usopp and Rose are missing from the campsite. "What happened to Rose and Usopp?"

The rest of the crew look around, but they can't find them anywhere.

"Maybe they're on the ship." Gan Fall says as he grabs a stick, so that he can slowly stand himself up without too much strain.

Robin closes her eyes to create an eye on the mast of the ship. It looks around the deck, and widens to see that the ship's not only fixed, but almost every addition that the salvage team made disappeared. The eye stops looking when it sees Usopp sleeping on the deck with a hammer in hand.

Robin giggles at her find as she cancels out the eye and turns to the others. "Long nose-kun is on the deck of the ship. It looks like he spent the night fixing it."

"Seriously?" Zoro asks as they head to the shore.

"See for yourself." Robin points to the ship just as they reach the shoreline, and everyone but her drops their jaws at the ship's improved condition.

"Usopp really did this?" Nami asks as she, Robin, Zoro, and Sanji take the crow raft to get to the altar while Chopper, Luffy and Gan Fall take his bird to fly to the boat.

Once everyone's on the deck, Robin goes inside to search for the wind girl, while Usopp begins to stir awake from the noise.

The sniper looks up to see that half of the crew is staring at him, while the others are admiring the repairs. He slowly gets up and raises an eyebrow at the ones who were staring at him. "What's with you guys?"

"Did you repair the ship?" Sanji asks in bewilderment that he made so many repairs in one night.

Usopp freezes when he remembers that he was working with Merry's ghost, but just before the sun began to rise he fell back asleep on the deck. He happily grins at the enjoyable time he spent with the ship's spirit before he boasts in confidence. "Of course, I used my master craft skills to help make the ship good as new!"

Zoro looks down at the repaired deck, that Luffy and Chopper are happily hopping on. "These repairs are pretty good Usopp."

Luffy stops jumping and looks to see that Merry's not wearing the flight gear anymore. He pouts at the cool additions no longer being there as he turns to Usopp. "Why did you take off the flight mode gear though? It looked awesome."

Usopp blinks at the complaint when he looks to see that the ship no longer has wings. "It wasn't me, it must've been Merry's ghost."

Everyone freezes at the explanation and are all confused, except for Chopper who's looking at him in awe. "The ship has a ghost?!"

Usopp nods as he looks at Merry's head to see that rooster decorations are gone. "Yea, we were working together to fix the ship all night. She must've taken the gear off when I fell asleep."

Everyone blankly stares at the renowned liar, which makes him sweat drop at their reaction. "What?"

Sanji rolls his eyes at the comment as he looks at the figurehead. "You don't need to keep lying Usopp. If you don't want the decorations on, you could just say it."

Usopp widens his eyes at the disbelief before he tries to defend himself. "I'm not lying here! I saw Merry working on the ship and I helped her out! You can ask Rose, she's the one who-"

He stops, when he sees that the wind girl isn't in the crowd, and looks at them in confusion. "Hey, where is Rose?"

"We're not sure." Gan Fall says when Robin walks back out to the deck.

"Wind-chan's not inside the ship." Robin says when she sees a corner of a piece of paper sticking out from under her captain's hat. "Looks like she left a note in captain-san's hat."

Luffy blinks at the comment as he takes off his hat to let a folded piece of paper fall off his head.

Nami catches it before it could hit the floor, and opens the note. When she read the contents, an irk mark appears on her forehead as she reads it out loud. "Hey guys. Sorry for the note, but I couldn't sleep. I decided to get a head start and see what's on the island. I'll meet you at the golden city. Rose."

She crumbles up the paper and furiously throws it away. "What the hell?! Did she forget about the priests and god that want to kill us?! She doesn't even know where she's going!"

Robin giggles at the navigator's rage and pats her on the shoulder. "Since wind-chan can fly, she can always find it through a bird's eye view."

Nami blinks at the calm explanation before she quietly sighs in defeat. "Yea, I guess so."

Luffy grins at the fact that Rose is alright before he turns to Nami. "So how do we get there?"

The navigator pulls out her map from her pocket and sits cross legged on the floor. The others crowd around her as she opens the map on the deck. She points to the golden mark that's a few inches below the altar symbol on the map. "I say we split up to two teams. The team that's getting the gold will need to go directly south of here. Once you find Rose, you guys get as much gold as you can."

Luffy nods to the plan with a grin. "Alright, I'm on the exploring team."

Zoro smirks at his enthusiastic captain as he looks to the island. "Count me in too."

Robin giggles at the enthusiasm as she steps up. "Sounds like fun."

Chopper looks to the island hesitantly for a moment before he raises his hoof up. "I want to go too."

Nami nods at the team formation as she points to the map's shoreline that's close to the ruins. "The rest of us will take the Merry through the island and go to the shoreline. Then we'll bring the ship as close to the city as we can to pick you guys up, and leave with the riches!"

Usopp tilts his head at the plan. "You're not going with them? I thought you'd want to be the first to get the gold."

Nami shakes her head. "No, the island's too dangerous."

The sniper sweat drops at the plan while Luffy starts getting off the ship. "That's fine, Zoro, Sanji, help me get the ship off the altar."

Zoro and Sanji follow him off the boat to start pushing the ship towards the stairs. Robin crosses her arms over her chest to summon as many arms as she can on the railings and stairs to lift the ship just above the stairs to avoid damage. After it passed one arm, another reproduced right in front of it to keep the ship flowing down the slope until the boat reaches the white waters.

Sanji grins in satisfaction as he jumps onto the Merry, while Robin and Chopper climb down the rope ladder to board onto the crow raft.

"See ya!" Luffy calls out as they sail to the island.

"Robin-chwan, be careful!" Sanji calls out as the archaeologist silently waves him off with a grin.

"Be sure to get as much gold as you can!" Nami says as she waves them off while Usopp steers the ship through the white river that they came from.

Gan Fall blinks at the confident crew as he looks to the island that holds the golden city. For the past six years that Eneru's been in power, this is the longest that anyone has survived against the trials. In his eyes, he knows that this crew has what it takes to take down the ruler that's been terrorizing this island for so long.

For that reason, he wants to stay and help guide the crew out of the river. He goes towards Sanji and goes into his pocket. "Take this."

Sanji quirks an eyebrow at the old man when he gives him a dial. "What kind of dial is this?"

"It's an impact dial. I'd like to show you all how it works as well as what the island's going through."

The three pirates turn their attention to him and listen intently as he teaches them about Skypiea and what it's going through.

* * *

Hours have passed since the wind girl has left the campsite, in hopes of drawing out the thunder user. However, instead of having Eneru come to her, she's stumbled to the shoreline on the other side of the island. She sighs in frustration as she runs a gloved hand through her unruly bangs to try to come up with what to do next.

With the crew surely awake by now, she feels that nows a good time to search for Eneri at the city to find Eneru. As she turns to leave, she stops when her stomach starts to grumble, so she flies up to a nearby tree to grab a banana for the trip.

She reaches for the ripe yellow fruit, but stops when she hears cannon fire coming from the ocean. The shot missed just a few inches away from her and blew up the fruit that was going to be her breakfast.

Rose twitches an eyebrow in irritation as she wipes the banana guts off her face and looks to see where the shot came from.

What she saw changes her irritation to surprise, when she sees a small army of twenty tribesmen gliding on the water towards her at top speed. _*It's Wiper's group!*_

She lands on the ground to dodge another cannon blast and looks to see that the banana tree blew up from the shot. "Oh, crap!"

She flies into the woods with the Shandorians in pursuit with guns in hand. Half the Shandorians drop their jaws as they all use their gliding shoes to travel through the milky river.

"What the hell is she?!" A scrawny tribesman in a grass skirt asks, as they glide through the white river and fire cloud arrows randomly through the air to create enough thick cloud streams to travel through the forest almost as freely as the wind girl.

The bronze skinned man, with a blue tribal tattoo from the left side of his toned chest up to his scowling face bites hard on the cigarette that's hanging on his mouth as they chase after her. "She's one of the blue sea pirates, and she's dangerous. Don't let her get away."

As she glides through the air, while moving in all directions to avoid the gunshots, she glares at their leader for ruining her meal. "Hey Wiper, what do you have against bananas?!"

"SHUT UP WITCH!" Wiper glares back at the pirate as he fires his cannon at her, but she ducks again to avoid the blow.

She sticks her tongue at him as she keeps flying. "You should stick to killing banana trees! You got better aim with them!"

Wiper grows irritated at the taunt as he and the others keep chasing her.

Rose chuckles at the fun chase, when remembers who the Shandorians are going to be up against. _*Shit, not again!*_

She tries to fly to another direction, to avoid Shura's trap, but it's too late when her body freezes in mid-air along with almost all of her pursuers.

"What is this?!" A tribeswoman asks as she tries to move her arms to use her weapon, but nothing happens.

"Didn't think you'd fall for the same trick twice brat. At least you won't die alone." Rose and the Shandorians follow the voice to see that Shura is sitting on the nearby hill with a smirk on his face and his bird by his side.

Rose narrows her purple eyes at the priest as she keeps him distracted while she's blowing air off her body to expand the cloud strings holding her. "Shut up jackass!"

The priest chuckles at the swearing as he starts heating up his javelin. "I'm going to enjoy this. As soon as I take care of the one who escaped my trap!"

He looks up above him to see Wiper, not trapped in any of his strings, crouched on a tree with his bazooka in hand.

Since he was caught in his attack, Wiper jumps off the tree and aims his weapon at him. Shura will have none of that as he hops onto Fuza's back and flies up.

Shura smirks at the prey as he gets ready to stab him, but what he wasn't expecting was for Rose to escape so quickly.

As Wiper throws away his cannon and straps a dial onto his hand, he widens his eyes when the wind girl flew up behind the priest. Rose wraps her arms under the priest's arms and puts him in a hold that pushes his javelin to his sides, and keeps his weapon away from Wiper.

Shura widens his eyes at the hold as he tries to free his arms, but she won't let him go. "What the hell are you doing?!"

"Giving Wiper a free target." Rose says while the Shandorian smirks at the open enemy, as he knocks them off the bird, and grips Shura's shoulder with the hand that's not holding the dial.

"You better say your prayers to Eneru." Wiper says as he pushes the dial onto his chest.

Shura widens his eyes at the dial that he's using against him. "Is that an impact dial?! That's not enough to-"

"Wrong, it's ten times stronger than that!" Wiper says, as Rose releases her hold on the priest and flies away from the warriors, just before the Shandorian activates the dial. "REJECT!"

Wiper's group and Rose cringe at the sight of the dial blasting Shura strong enough to kill him instantly as he coughs up blood. Wiper however, couldn't care less at the gruesome sight as he smirks in victory and grips his shoulder that he got hurt from using the reject dial.

Just before either fighter could hit the ground, Rose creates a gust of wind to catch them both. Wiper blinks at the assistance as he looks up at the freckled pirate, and narrows his dark eyes on her. "Why help me?"

Rose chuckles at his suspicions as she flies to a nearby banana tree to grab one of its fruits. "You're not the only one who wants to take down Eneru. I'd rather us be allies, but that's up to you. I'll see you in the golden city banana killer."

She leaves the irritated Shandorian alone to free his comrades as she flies off and eats her breakfast. She throws away the peel and flies above the trees to see that Fuza is flying off. She grins at the bird as she goes after him until she's right in front of him. "Wait Fuza, if you don't have a place to go, do you want to join us?"

An irk mark grow's on the purple bird's head as he heats up his mouth.

Rose widens her eyes at the fiery bird as she descends to dodge the flames. "Ok, never mind!"

Fuza stops his flames as he watches her retreat into the woods and huffs in satisfaction before he flies off to enjoy his newfound freedom.

Rose lands in the middle of the woods to catch her breath and chuckles at the fun chase she went through. _*Having to escape those guys is going on my list of crazy chases. I'd better get-*_

She snaps out of it when she hears electricity crackling in the air and looks up with wide eyes to see blue lightning coming at her. She jumps out of the way just in time to avoid the blast, and sees the charred remains of her spot. "Eneru..."

"So you really do know who I am mantra holder." Rose stiffens at the masculine voice and looks up at the tree above her to see the shirtless god, with long ears, is playfully smirking at her.

Rose jumps back and gets in a stance while Eneru chuckles at her tenseness.

His smile quickly fades into a bored look however, as he hops off the tree with his golden staff in hand and looks over the curve-less girl. "Shura did say you were young, but he didn't say you were a child. I must say, even I was surprised when I first sensed your presence, but you're disappointing. What exactly are you?"

The scrawny girl narrows her purple eyes at the overly tall electric man, as she turns her right arm into air. "I'm human like you, dumbass!"

He raises an eyebrow at the wind arm when he sees it blasting in a completely different direction than where he's at. What he didn't expect though, was that the wind completely changed directions at random throughout the area until it clocked him in the side from his right.

Eneru widens his eyes at the attack, that he couldn't sense because of how random it was, and is sent flying until he breaks through a tree. Before the god could recover, he's lifted into the air by another gust of wind a few feet into the air and slammed down. Eneru stays down, because he has no idea what just happened, and looks up to see that the wind girl is flying above him.

She channels her wind arm to the fellow logia user, but he rolls to the side to dodge the blow. However, he didn't expect the wind to change directions before it could hit the ground, and flies to his direction to send him flying.

Before he could hit a tree, he transforms into electricity to fly off on his own. He reforms on the ground and grows more intrigued by the pirate as electricity starts surging through his arms from the thrill of the fight. _*She actually landed a blow with that wind... She really could be a god like me.*_

Rose sends him flying again to throw him to a tree, but he transforms himself into lighting again to escape the hold and head straight for her.

The wind girl flies up in fear of getting struck, and lands on a branch. When she looks down, she sees that there's no sign of the pale man. "Where-"

She stops when she feels the branch, that's holding her fifteen feet in the air, bend from additional weight. She turned around, only to be grabbed by the collar of her jacket, and lifted off her feet. He slams her back against the tree trunk, keeps her off her feet, and starts electrocuting her with low volt electricity. "You truly are an interesting child."

Rose grits her teeth and chokes down the pain as she grabs his hands to try to free herself. She tries to transform her whole body into wind just as Eneru does with his element, but all she could do is turn her arm into air.

Eneru chuckles at the feeble attempt as he tilts his head to avoid the wind blasts from her arm and stops his electricity. "Seems you're still a greenhorn with your element. What do you say in joining me? I can teach you what it means to be a true god."

She gives him the scariest glare that her eyes can give him as a small smirk forms on her face. "If being like you is what it means to be a god, then I'd rather stay human! How about you go fly away on those big ears instead Dumbo?!"

Eneru tilts his head at the Disney reference, for he has no idea what it means. Regardless, he won't tolerate the insult as he gets ready to electrocute her again, but stops when he hears the wind whirling below them.

He looks down in shock to see that a tornado, that's at least ten feet tall, is continuously growing right below them. "How?!"

While he's distracted Rose pulls herself free, flies up above him, and blows a strong gust of wind to push him off the tree. "I made that tribute for you when I flew up here. Have a good flight, you bastard!"

Eneru falls off the tree from the blast, and gets sucked into the whirlwind while Rose flies high above the trees to avoid it. She watches the growing twister in satisfaction, but it's short lived when she sees that blue lighting is beginning to morph with the tornado. What's really surprising, is that the lightning is moving in the opposite direction of the cyclone. "What?!"

She drops her jaw at the sight of her wind being overtaken by the electricity until it looks like a tornado of lightning instead of wind. Once the electricity fades, she sees Eneru standing proudly on the ground.

He snickers at the attempt to trap him as he looks up at her. "Very resourceful, I'd love to stay and play with you more, but it looks like the game's reaching its peak. I look forward to seeing you in the city of gold little goddess."

"I'm not a god!" She angrily turns her arm into wind and tries to blast him, but before her wind can hit the ground, he already vanished into a bolt of lightning.

The slightly electrocuted girl pants from the exhaustion of the battle, as she sits down on a high branch of a tree to catch her breath. She looks around to see that no one else is nearby, so she allows herself to relax as she thinks about Eneru's last comment to her. _*I know Eneru's crazy, but this is ridiculous. If anything, we're more devils than gods.*_

She chuckles at the thought as she looks down to her arms. When she remembers how Eneru cancelled her tornado with his electricity, she grins in interest as she thinks up a way to counter his lightning. Whether or not her idea can work though, is anyone's guess.

She slowly stands up, careful not to break the branch, and looks around to find that the beanstalk that leads the crew to the city is a few miles away from her.

The wind girl gets ready to fly but stops when she hears a familiar swordsman yelling.

"THERE'S NO FOOD IN THERE YOU STUPID BIRD! LET GO!"

She hears a loud south bird call right after, and turns to the voice to see a south bird, that's at least ten times the size of the one she caught, flying above the trees. What's amusing though, is that the bird is carrying a backpack with his talons along with Zoro who's clinging onto the backpack for dear life.

Rose chuckles at the sight as she grabs her camera from her bag. She flies after the massive bird from behind and can't help but smirk at the swordsman's situation. "If you wanted to fly so badly then you should've asked me Zoro."

Zoro widens his eyes and turns his head to the right see his crew mate taking a picture of his situation. He twitches an eyebrow at the fun she's having in his predicament, and scowls at her. "SHUT UP! THIS BIRD TRIED TO STEAL MY STUFF! AND WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?!"

Rose chuckles at his anger as she puts the camera away. "I did say I couldn't sleep in my note, right? So I left, got chased down by raiders, helped them beat a priest, and tried to recruit the bird that burned me but that didn't work out."

She blinks as if she forgot about the last part of her adventure and casually grins at him. "Oh yea, I also got in a fight with the island's god, who now thinks that I'm also a god, because of my devil fruit."

He sweat drops at the long explanation, but at least he understands where the charred marks on her body came from now. "What happened with the god?"

She loses her smile at the question as she tightens her fists in rage. "The asshole left saying that 'the game is reaching its peak.' I think it's safe to guess that he's waiting for survivors in the golden city."

He nods in agreement before he looks ahead to see that they're flying to the beanstalk. As the opportunity for a fight gets closer, he can't stop the smirk that's coming on his face. "In that case, let's give him hell."

Rose mirrors his smirk, in excitement of testing her powers out more, as she looks up at the bird. "Works for me. So, you want to use my wind for the rest of the way or would you rather stick to bird gliding?"

Zoro loses his smirk and groans at the reminder of him hanging from a bird. "Just shut up and-"

He cuts himself off when they hear trees collapsing below them, and they look down in shock to see that a huge light green python, with dark blue curves decorating her entire body, is practically jumping towards them.

Both the bird and the pirates scream in fright as they fly higher to narrowly dodge the snake's bite.

"Fly faster bird!" Zoro says as the south bird continues carrying Zoro while Rose flies beside them.

As the south bird looks down at the pursuing serpent, he comes up with a brilliant plan to lose her: feed her a pirate in exchange for his freedom. He immediately takes the plan into action, by releasing his talons from the bag to drop both the container and the swordsman.

Zoro widens his eyes at the drop when he finds himself free falling towards the snake. "YOU DAMN BIRD!"

Rose quickly catches him with her wind and sees that they're right above a cloud, that's halfway up the beanstalk, and holds only a few abandoned buildings along with a group of warriors.

She looks to the snake, who's crying out in stomach pains, is starting to slither up the beanstalk to get to the ruins. "Looks like we're here."

Zoro blinks at the statement as Rose brings them close enough to see that not only did Wiper make it, but also Gan Fall, who's riding on the back of Pierre, along with Ohm and his dog who are standing in their way.

The warriors widen their eyes at the new arrivals as they land on the ground.

"Don't get in my way!" Wiper says as he keeps his bazooka in hand.

"That should be my line. I'm here for the gold." Zoro says as he unsheathes two of his swords.

Ohm sighs at the arrivals as he grips at his own sword. "All of you are pitiful. I'll teach you all a lesson with my trial of iron."

Gan Fall narrows his eyes at the priest as he grips his javelin. However, before anyone could start the brawl, the snake that's been following the pirates, practically jumps onto the cloud.

"What the hell?!" Wiper asks as they're all wary of the large serpent that's slithering towards them.

Rose narrows her eyes on the crying snake and focuses her gaze on her stomach. _*If everything's the same then Luffy should be in her stomach. Maybe if I-*_

"DIE!" Rose snaps out of it when Wiper blasts his bazooka at her and Zoro, but they dodge the blow.

Ohm gets on the back of his dog, joins the fray, and immediately senses the sky knight flying towards him from the right. He easily blocks the javelin that came his way and narrows his eyes at the elder from behind his sunglasses. "You really want to get into this old man?"

"I'm not leaving until I know where Eneru is." Gan Fall says as his bird flies them back for another strike with the priest.

As the five of them are fighting, the snake is slithering all over the ruins while she's agonizing over the stomach pains, that are caused by Luffy punching her from the inside.

Rose and Zoro barely notice the snake's pain as they duck behind a boulder to avoid Wiper's cannon fire. The brunette looks towards the battle between the knight and priest, and narrows her eyes at them. "Zoro, I'm gonna back up the knight."

He nods to the plan as he grips his swords, but before he moves he spots something in the corner of his eye. He looks to his left in shock to see that Chopper is unconscious with bruises all over him. "Chopper?!"

Rose freezes and follows her gaze to the horrible sight of the reindeer's injured body. "Doc's here?!"

She mentally scolds herself for forgetting that he comes here on his own as the two pirates rush to the doctor.

As Ohm and Gan Fall are fighting, the priest sees the pirates running to the doctor and sighs. "So that's your crew mate. You better watch your step."

Zoro doesn't listen as he steps on a trip wire, that sets the barbed wire made of iron cloud to spring up and separate Rose and Zoro. Wiper widens his eyes at the trap, when he accidentally hits another trip wire, and jumps back to dodge the wire that's sprung up and starts spreading out all over the ruins to trap them.

Pierre had to fly away from Ohm, to avoid the traps as the wires are hung from ten feet into the air to right by their feet.

Rose ignores the wires as she goes to Chopper while Zoro stares at the spiked clouds. "Is this barbed wire?!"

"It's iron cloud. It may be light, but it's as strong as metal." Ohm says as he looks to see Rose holding the reindeer while she makes sure that he's alive. "That creature foolishly came here on his own and had no chance to escape my trap. Just as you all won't."

Rose clenches her teeth at the priest's comment as she silently lays the doctor down, stands up, and glares at the priest along with Zoro.

"On second thought Rose, we're both kicking his ass." Zoro says as he furiously grips his swords.

Rose nods in agreement as she cracks her knuckles and starts unintentionally blowing off hot air from her body to release her anger. "Let's do it..."

Zoro ignores the hot air as the two of them run to the priest, while Pierre weaves through the wires with his knight on his back for them to join the fray.

Wiper goes to attack them when the snake starts slithering in his way, and destroying the buildings. The native narrows his eyes on the damage to his homeland before he turns his rage to the snake. "You die first!"

He blasts his cannon at the snake's thick scales, but she barely feels the blast in comparison to her stomach pains, so Wiper pursues her.

Rose and Zoro charge at Ohm at the same time, but instead of dodging them the priest manipulates his iron cloud sword to stretch and whip towards them. However, before it could hit either of them Rose blasts a gust of hot air towards the weapon to block the blow.

Zoro goes to attack the priest, but the dog protects his master by punching him.

"What kind of a dog punches?!" Zoro asks as he rolls to his feet and sees Rose flying around to block and dodge their attacks.

Ohm narrows his eyes at the girl as his dog keeps moving forward to try to back her into a barbed wire. "You really are troublesome-"

Rose cuts him off by blasting her wind at him, but he easily jumps off his dog and lands on the ground next to him. Zoro rushes in to fight the priest while the dog keeps attacking Rose.

The canine growls at the girl as he tries to punch her and back her into the barbed wire that's right behind, but she ducks from the blow and scowls at the dog. "Holy, knock yourself out."

The dog freezes at the command before he complies and punches himself in the face until he falls unconscious. Rose catches the dog with her wind before he could fall onto the iron cloud and gently lays him on the ground.

Ohm strikes Zoro with his sword, sends him flying to a ruin, and widens his eyes at his defeated pet. He scowls at the girl as he pushes up his sunglasses and sense more auras approaching. "This will be interesting."

The pirates look at him in confusion when a group of twenty people jump onto the island through the cloud. Half of them are goat like clergymen under Eneru, and the other half are the Shandorians.

What surprised both Zoro and Rose though, was that Nami, and a little girl wearing a pale-yellow dress and cap, are riding a waver up the beanstalk with goat clergymen hopping after them.

Wiper stops trying to kill the snake, who's slithering towards the intruders, and widens his eyes at the little Shandorian girl when he realizes who she is. "What's Aisa doing here?!"

He doesn't get an answer as some of the goat men keep chasing them up the stalk, so he goes after them.

Rose flies after the chase and looks back to Zoro. "I'll back Nami up Zoro!"

Zoro nods as he returns to his battle with the priest.

"Kill them, meh!" One of the goat men says as they get close to the girls, but before they could lay a hand on them both Rose and Wiper knock them off the plant.

Nami and Aisa look back at their friends in shock as Rose flies after them.

"Rose, where have you been?! And where are the others?!" Nami asks but Rose ignores her question and asks one of her own.

"I should be asking you, why'd you bring a kid here?!"

"It's a long story." Nami says while Aisa widens her eyes at the wind girl.

She's become wary, not because of the sight of the flying girl, but because she realizes that the strange aura that's been bothering her since yesterday has been coming from this girl. She tightens her grip on Nami's legs as she glares at the brunette. "Why do you-?!"

"AISA, GET AWAY FROM THEM!" Wiper calls out as he aims his cannon at them.

Rose widens her eyes at the cannon as he fires at them, but before it could hit anyone, Pierre flies towards them while Gan Fall grabs the waver, and Rose uses her wind to help lift all the tiny boat up. Nami grabs onto the knight to keep themselves balanced with the little girl clinging to the navigator's legs for support.

Rose keeps using her wind to help ease the weight from the knight and bird, as she flies next to them. "Are you guys ok?!"

Nami nods as she looks around, and widens her eyes at the serpent. "Oh my god, that's a huge snake!"

The group look in her direction and bug their eyes out at the snake, to see her face right next to them with hunger in her golden eyes.

"You gotta be shitting me..." Rose mutters as the snake open her jaws as wide as she can and swallows the entire group whole.

Zoro blocks Ohm's strike and drops his jaw at the sight. "What are those morons doing?!"

"Dammit, Aisa!" Wiper says as he skates after the snake to try to spit his comrade out while the battle on the ruins continues.

* * *

Nami and Aisa scream in fright as they, Gan Fall, Rose, and Pierre fall into the snake's stomach. Before Pierre could do anything, the waver hits his head to knock him out and crashes into Rose.

Rose pushes him off her and catches the group just when they reach the pit of her stomach.

Gan Fall blinks at the safe landing before he sits down on a piece of stone to rest his ankle. He scans his surroundings to see broken buildings, treasure, and stomach acid everywhere. "Looks like we're in her stomach."

Rose nods as she looks to see that the bird's regaining consciousness and then looks to the girls. "You two didn't get hurt from the fall, right?"

Nami nods, but Aisa grabs a stick and points the weapon at her. Even though she's trying to glare at the wind girl, she can't hide the fear in her eyes from anyone.

Rose widens her eyes at the child's distress before she remembers that this little girl's the only one on the island, besides Eneru and the priests, that has observation haki. _*She must've noticed my aura...*_

She quietly sighs as she steps back to show that she means no harm, and flies off. "I'm gonna see if anyone else got eaten. You never know right?"

Nami blinks at Rose's retreat, and knits her eyebrows at Aisa's behavior. "What's the matter with you?"

The kid keeps an uneasy eye on the wind girl, as she keeps feeling her aura. "Her voice is so loud and strange. I never heard anything like it before, it's creepy."

Rose pretends that she didn't hear the child's comment about her as she spots a familiar straw hat nearby.

As she heads to her captain, Nami blinks at the complaint. "By her voice, do you mean-?"

"Quit digging into her sides Luffy!" Everyone freezes at Rose's voice when they hear Luffy's voice right after her.

"Rose, you came to the mystery cave too?!"

"This isn't a cave, you got eaten by a snake!"

"What?!"

"Yea, you've been digging at her sides this whole time! Come on!"

The others look in shock to see Rose flying towards them with Luffy by her side.

"You guys got eaten?!" Luffy asks as Rose lands them on the floor.

Nami doesn't answer, but instead pulls her captain's nose. "You got eaten too! And what was this about you digging into the snake?!"

"I was trying to get out..." Luffy says as Nami's pulling made his voice sound nasally.

Aisa, Pierre, and Gan Fall sweat drop at the exchange and wonder if he's actually serious.

Rose bites the inside of her cheek, to resist laughing at the funny face Luffy's making, before she pats the navigator on the shoulder to calm her down. "Take it easy Nami, we should be working on getting out of here."

Nami releases his nose, but Luffy looks at them in confusion. "Can't we just go out through the butt?"

"No way!" Nami says as she whacks him on the head.

Rose nods in agreement as she searches the area wood. "Nami's right Luffy, we need to make a fire so that she'll sneeze us out."

"WE CAN'T DO THAT!" Nami yells as she whacks her on the head.

Aisa tilts her head at the brunette, who she was worried about, just a minute ago. _*Is her voice just a fluke? There's nothing menacing about her...*_

Rose chuckles at Nami's rejection as she rubs the back of her head and thinks it over. "Maybe you're right, I've only seen it work on whales."

"Seriously?!" Luffy asks in shock with her nodding.

The navigator shakes her head at the craziness, when the snake moves around and sends them all flying along with a few buildings.

Gan Fall gets on the back of his bird just before a ruin could fall on him, while Nami grabs her waver and starts it up. "Guys, get on the waver! I can navigate the rest of us out of here!"

The others nod to the plan, as Rose flies onto the back of the waver and grabs on Nami's waist. Luffy wraps an arm around Aisa and grabs onto the exhaust pipe.

"Let's get out of here!" Luffy says as the waver starts moving.

Aisa widens her eyes when she sees that the exhaust for the waver's wind dial is directed towards them. "Wait, that's-!"

It was too late, because when the waver drove towards the mouth at full speed, it sent both Aisa and Luffy flying back into the stomach.

As Gan Fall and Pierre reach the mouth, the knight looks back in shock to see what happened. "Pierre, get them back!"

He jumps off the bird to escape the snake while Pierre follows his master's commands by flying back into the snake's mouth for his friends.

When Nami and Rose leave the mouth, Rose creates a gust of wind so that they and Gan Fall land on the ground safely.

Once they're safe, the wind girl looks around to see that Aisa and Luffy are still in the snake. "Shit, they didn't come with us."

She starts flying back to get them when Gan Fall walks in front of her. "It's alright, Pierre is getting them. He's reliable."

She looks back at the snake for a moment and nods to the plan so that Aisa stays away from Eneru. "Alright, thank you."

The knight nods while Nami looks at their new surroundings. She widens her eyes in surprise to see that they're not at the ruins anymore, but in an ancient city. "Where are we?"

"It looks like we're under the surface." Gan Fall says as he as he gazes at the city. "I didn't expect this to be on the Upper Yard though."

Rose looks back at the snake, and sees that she's searching the city for something with a happy grin on her face.

Nami follows her gaze and tilts her head in confusion. "Is Luffy doing something to the snake again?"

Rose shakes her head. "I don't think so, it looks like she's searching for something." They keep staring at the snake only to find that she stopped and began crying.

The three of them cover their ears from her loud cry, before they see a ball of electricity in the air. The group looks to the snake in horror, when the lightning plummets onto the snake and electrocutes her.

"AISA!" The group looks to see Wiper at the nearby square and yelling in horror at what could happen to his fellow Shandorian.

"NAMI! ROSE!" The girls widen their eyes at their names being called by the swordsman, just behind the wall next to them.

When they look over the wall, they see not only Zoro, with an unconscious Chopper in his arms, but also Robin looking to the snake in worry for their friends.

Rose chuckles at their worry as she waves at them. "Don't kill us off just yet."

The pirates look at the girls in shock to see that they're alright.

"When did you get out?" Robin asks as Nami, Rose, and Gan Fall go over to them.

Nami looks over the snake worriedly. "A couple of minutes ago. I'm more worried about Luffy though. He's still in the snake."

Zoro widens his eyes at this. "When the hell did Luffy get in there?!"

Rose raises her hands defensively. "Don't ask us, he was in there before we were."

"ENERU!" The group turns to Wiper's furious voice to see him trying to blast something on the roof of a nearby building, and they look in shock to see that it's the island's ruler.

As Eneru jumps to dodge the cannon fire, Nami takes Chopper from Zoro and runs to hide behind a ruin.

Gan Fall and the other pirates glare at the electric man as he casually stands in the middle of the square with the other survivors.

Eneru chuckles at the glares he's receiving from the survivors as he casually smiles at them. "Looks like our game is reaching its end."

"Did you just call this a game?!" Wiper angrily asks but Eneru ignores his rage as he answers him.

"That's right, and we're all contestants. Including myself, to see who would survive on this island."

 _*This sick fucker...*_ Rose bites back the many insults that are begging to come out of her mouth as she tightens her fists and listens to him.

"I predicted that after three hours, there would be six survivors."

Nami widens her eyes at the prediction, when she realizes that besides herself there are six people at the square. _*Maybe he didn't notice me!*_

Eneru grins at the survivors as he looks at the ruin that the navigator's hiding behind. "There seems to be a problem though. Since there are seven survivors instead of six."

Nami jolts at his comment and cries comical tears at knowing that he noticed her after all.

The others however, keep their guards up when they hear Eneru's solution. "My predictions can't be wrong, so someone has to be eliminated. Will you all decide who dies or should I?"

The group looks to each other when Zoro turns to Robin and Rose. "What do you think?"

"No thank you." Robin says with a casual grin.

"Hell no." Rose says with Zoro nodding in agreement.

"I'm not either."

"I'm not dying." Wiper says.

"I refuse as well." Gan Fall says when they look at the ruin that Nami's hidden behind.

The navigator jolts when she feels their stares on her. "W-wait, I-"

"We choose you." The warriors say at the same time, as they point their weapons at Eneru.

Eneru chuckles at their impudence. "It looks like none of you know what it means to be a god."

"That's enough Eneru! What are you trying to accomplish with all this?!" Gan Fall asks furiously.

"Isn't it obvious? I seek to go to god's land. A land of limitless earth. I'm going to discard this lousy piece of land and head off to the place where I belong."

Wiper and Gan Fall narrow their eyes at the explanation. "Discard it?"

Eneru nods as if what he's saying isn't wrong. "I have no use for this land anymore, so once I leave this island I'm going to send it back to the world below. Even if that means destroying the place."

"I WON'T ALLOW IT!" Gan Fall yells as he charges the man, while he ignores the pain in his ankle.

Eneru chuckles at his defiance as he transforms himself into lightning and reappears right next to him while he points two fingers at him. "Thirty million volts!"

The others can only watch in horror as Eneru electrocutes the knight. Once he stops his power, the elderly man immediately falls unconscious with electrocution marks all over his body.

Zoro grips his swords tighter to hold back his rage. "He's a devil fruit user?!"

Robin nods as she narrows her eyes on the man. "It must be a lightning devil fruit. That means he's a logia user."

Eneru could care less about his defeated opponent, as he looks to the remaining survivors with a smile. "Yaahahaha, looks like we have the right number of survivors now. I would like to congratulate you all on making it. Now, come with me to god's land."

Wiper raises an eyebrow at the order at he keeps his guard up. "What are you talking about?"

The electric man chuckles as he explains his plan. "I've used this game to select the chosen few who are worthy to come with me to god's land."

"And if we refuse?" Robin asks as if her life isn't on the line.

Eneru loses his smile at the question, and looks at her in confusion. "Why would you? If you stay, you'll die like the rest of them."

Robin casually grins as if this is a regular conversation. "It's true, but if you destroy the country, then you could lose the golden bell."

The others look at her in confusion, except for Eneru who chuckles at her argument. "I already have the bell."

Robin widens her eyes at his claim as he starts charging up his arms. "It seems you underestimated me. How shallow."

He points an electrified finger at Robin and fires his electricity at her. However, what nobody expected was Rose to go in front of Robin and push her back.

Before the lightning could strike her, she creates a whirlwind around her, just like the wind barrier she made when she fought with Ace in Alabasta.

Everyone widens their eyes at the barrier, because the electricity got redirected into the wind. Rose cringes at how hard it is to maintain it with the electricity before she cancels out the barrier and stops the lightning.

Rose lightly pants from exhaustion, but she can't stop the small victorious smirk from coming on her face.

"How did you know that would work?" Robin asks, but Rose just shrugs.

"I didn't. I saw Eneru do the same thing to my tornado and thought I could do the same."

Nami blinks at the explanation when she remembers how wind can be used to create electricity. _*With her power, she might be able to take him down.*_

She grins in hope that she could win, but Eneru's not pleased at all.

He narrows his eyes on the brunette as he grips his staff. "Even you're siding with the humans?"

"Never said I wasn't asshole!" Rose says as she and Zoro charge the god.

He sighs in disappointment, as he easily dodges their wind punches and blades, and jumps into the air. Wiper takes this chance to shoot his bazooka at him.

Eneru turns his body into a flash of lightning, and easily dodges the blast. The Shandorian clicks his tongue at the dodge when he sees him reform on another rooftop.

Robin summons a group of arms to lock him onto the roof, so Wiper fires again. However, Eneru turns himself into lightning again to avoid the cannon.

Everyone searches for where he'll reappear next, but they can't find him anywhere.

"You're all fools." Everyone widens their eyes to see that he's re-appeared behind Robin, and has her in a headlock with one arm while he's pinned her arms behind her back with the other.

"Robin!" Zoro, Nami, and Rose call out in worry as the swordsman and astronomer run after them.

Rose starts creating wind to send Eneru flying, but it was too late as he electrocutes Robin.

Once he's done, he turns into electricity to avoid the pirates and leaves the archaeologist to fall. Zoro manages to catch her in his arms while Rose goes after Eneru.

"Get back here, you bastard!" Rose says as she turns her arm into hot wind and fires at him. Eneru chuckles at the attempt as he turns his arm into electricity and counters her wind. "You're wasting your energy."

While he's distracted Zoro strikes him, but his blades are blocked by Eneru's staff. The god kicks him with an electric foot to send him flying backwards while he continues his lightning strike towards the girl.

Rose widens her eyes at how his lightning is overpowering her arm, so when it approaches her, she flies up to avoid the blast. What Eneru wasn't expecting though, was while he was busy attacking Rose and Zoro, Wiper abandoned his cannon to run at him.

Just when Eneru drove off Rose's attack, Wiper jumped at him with his reject dial in hand. While Eneru keeps on a poker face, he's genuinely surprised on the inside that Wiper's touch didn't go through the logia user. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Do you know what sea stone is?" Wiper asks which surprises the blue sea pirates.

Rose grins at the sneak attack as she and Zoro stay back.

Wiper makes sure that his shoes are in contact with Eneru's skin as he keeps explaining. "I added some to my shooters. You won't be able to use your powers now."

He was right, because all of Eneru's strength has been drained to the point where he had to fall on his knees. Eneru begins to worry about what will happen, when he sees the reject dial in his hand. "Wait, you can't be serious! If you use the reject dial on me, then you'll die too."

"As long as you die with me then I don't care!" He hits the reject dial on Eneru's chest without a care for his own life. "REJECT!"

The pirates take cover from the blast as a strong wind blows over them all. When the smoke subsides, everyone looks to see Wiper standing up proudly with Eneru dead on the ground.

The Shandorian smirks in pride as he smokes his cigarette and steps away from Eneru. "It's finally over."

Rose widens her eyes as she remembers how he survived in the manga, and yells to Wiper as she runs to him. "KEEP THE SEA STONE ON HIM!"

The others look at her in confusion, before electricity starts surging on Eneru's body. Wiper immediately understands what she's talking about, and goes to put his sea stone shoe back on Eneru, but it's too late. Electricity blasts out of him in all directions and sends both Rose and Wiper flying away from the body.

They both catch themselves before they could hit the ground and look in horror to see Eneru standing back up again.

"D-did he just restart his heart?!" Nami asks in pure despair of their situation.

Almost everyone is paralyzed in fear as he wipes off blood from the corner of his mouth. "This part of the game has gone on long enough."

Nami starts shaking in fear as Rose charges at him.

"You're the one who started this!" Rose says as she turns her arm into air to hit him, but he jumps to dodge while Wiper jumps right behind him.

"I won't let you ruin my ancestor's land anymore!" He goes to kick him with his sea stone skate, but Eneru uses his staff to break the skates off his feet.

"That won't work on me this time." Eneru says as he lets Rose use her wind to send him flying to a building while he charges his electricity. "Thunder bird."

As soon as his back hits the building he releases a bird made of entirely electricity that flies straight to Wiper in the blink of an eye.

Rose tries to use her wind to move him out of the way, but it's too late as the bird flies straight through the Shandorian. Wiper screams in agony of the electrocution before it knocks him out.

Rose catches Wiper before he hits the ground, then sets him on the ground, before she glares at the thunder man and flies at him.

He shoots his lightning at her again, but Rose doesn't dodge as she transforms her arm into wind. This time though, she changes the wind on her arm so that it's like her arm is a tornado and blocks it against the lightning.

Eneru widens his eyes at the surprising move as the electricity morphed with the wind and punches him in the gut. The tornado punch managed to not only send him flying, but send him spinning into a building.

Rose lands on the ground, and flinches from the electric hitting her arm as she turns it back to normal. She catches her breath from the experiment, as she forces herself to keep standing on trembling legs.

Zoro widens his eyes at his crew mate's exhaustion before he finds the broken skates at the other side of the plaza, and runs to get it. _*That sea stone's our only chance.*_

From inside the building, Eneru chuckles at the swordsman's plans as he creates another electric animal. "Thunder beast!"

Rose widens her eyes at the electric wolf that jumps out of the building and bites down on Zoro as if it was a real animal.

Rose flies over to Zoro and blasts her wind at the animal, but it couldn't stop the electricity from harming Zoro until he fell unconscious. Once the animal vanished, Rose catches Zoro by the shoulders and lays him down.

Eneru chuckles at the wind girl's compassion as he jumps out the window. "Now you see how pointless it is to side with humans little one? You're much better off-"

"SHUT UP!" Eneru blinks at Rose's outburst she turns around to give him one of the most frightening glares he's ever seen.

Even Nami jumps back in fear when she sees the fury in Rose's eyes, and it's not even aimed at her.

Rose doesn't notice her navigator's fright as she flies in the air. "The only thing you've done is completely piss me off!"

She flies straight at him while Eneru turns into electricity to dodge. He reappears on a roof while Rose flies up, turns both her arms into wind again, and aims them at random directions.

Eneru looks around for where they will hit, but it's too late when they send him flying off the building. She creates a gust to swat him to the ground, but he turns himself into electricity to avoid the attack.

Rose looks around for her prey when she sees the sea stone. She uses her wind to pick it up, without touching it, when she hears electricity in the air. She looks to see that another electric bird is coming at her, so she flies up to dodge.

She managed to dodge the main blow, but the electricity grazed her legs and made her stumble in the air. She sees Eneru smirking at her as he turns both his arms into lightning before he fires them straight at her. She makes both of her arms into tornadoes as she blocks the blows.

Eneru's electricity however was stronger than the last time and began to overpower her, so she lets her wind throw the sea stone at him. Before it could hit him though, he turns the rest of his body into lightning and flew up to avoid it while he continues his attack.

Rose widens her eyes at the dodge as she keeps blocking the blow as he flies above her. "It's over."

He doubles the strength in his lightning and sends her falling. Rose flies forward to dodge the lightning from completely roasting her, and rolls on the ground as her arms turn back to normal. She tries to fly again, but her wind won't work anymore from the exhaustion.

As she stands up, Eneru reappears next to her, picks her up by the neck with one hand, and enough slack for her to breathe, then slams her back to the wall. "You could do so much better than this little goddess. Why are you resisting?"

Nami knits her eyebrows in confusion as she fearfully stares at the two logia users. _*Did he just call her a goddess? Maybe because of her devil fruit?*_

Rose grits her teeth as she grips his hand with one hand to struggle, and tries to use her wind with the other, but nothing happens except for her fist going through him. "For the last time I'm not a god, you delusional prick! We're both human!"

He chuckles at the claim as he looks at all the buildings they destroyed. "You're the one who's delusional if you think this destruction can be made by two humans."

She continues to try punching and kicking in his grasp in hopes of her wind doing something, but gets no results as he pushes her back against the building harder, and looks her in the eyes with a devilish smirk. "It's time that you grow up and face the truth. No matter how hard you try to blend in with these pirates, you'll always be different from them. Your mantra should be enough proof of that."

Nami widens her eyes at what he said when she remembers Aisa's reaction to Rose, along with the priests acting strange when they were at Upper Yard together, and realizes that her mantra's different. What she doesn't understand is why though? Could it really be because of her devil fruit?

She continues to nervously watch as Eneru keeps lecturing the brunette. "You need to understand that as gods, we're always going to be feared. It's pointless to try being friends with these humans, because deep down they'll always be afraid of you."

Rose widens her eyes at the claim, that holds her fears for if the crew knew the truth, before she frantically kicks and struggles in his grip. "You don't know them!"

He chuckles at her denial as he looks to the scared navigator. "Just look at your redhead friend if you don't believe me. You really think she's just afraid of me?"

Rose freezes, and timidly looks to see that Nami's face is holding complete fright. The wind girl slowly shakes her head, and looks away from the terrified look that's all too familiar for her. "S-she's not- AAAH!"

She screams in agony when Eneru finishes their conversation by electrocuting her.

Nami can only stare in horror as the last hope for defeating Eneru is taken down. _*T-there's no way we can win...*_

When Eneru saw that Rose lost consciousness, he stopped his electricity and picked her up over his shoulder. He lets her head, thin arms and legs hang in the air as he carries her. "You'll learn the truth in time, child."

Nami could barely move her shaking legs as Eneru approaches her with her crew mate. When he doesn't do anything to her yet, she nervously smiles up at him. "Umm, can I go with you?"

He raises an eyebrow at the request, but stays silent as she asks again. "Can I go to the dream world with you please?"

He looks at her blankly for a moment before he smirks at her. "Yaahahaha, sure, you can come with me." He looks to Wiper's second sea stone skate that's lying on the center of the plaza, and points to it. "I need you to take that sea stone with us. That way this one won't get any ideas."

Nami jolts at the plan as she looks at the sleeping wind girl. She hesitantly nods as she takes the skate and puts it in the abandoned waver. "Would it be alright if I take this with us too?"

Eneru tilts his head at the request, but he shrugs it off as he walks off with Rose. "Do what you want, let's go."

Nami nods as she looks back at her unconscious friends, that are being left behind, once more before she follows Eneru. As she walks behind the electric man, she looks at Rose's unconscious form in guilt for not denying what Eneru said to her in fear of being electrocuted. _*I'll try to get us out of here. Just hang on…*_

She grips the handlebars of the waver and tries her best to think up a plan to escape as she follows the lightning god to his dream world.

TO BE CONTINUED


	31. Chapter 31

Just a few minutes after Eneru's battle with the warriors was concluded, Luffy, Aisa, and Pierre were able to escape the fried snake through her open mouth.

Once they're safely outside, Luffy grins at the exciting new place as he climbs up the pyramid. Aisa skittishly looks around the ancient city before she follows Luffy along with the bird.

When they reach the top, Luffy can't stop the excited grin from forming on his face. "Whoa, this place is awesome!"

Pierre remains speechless at the sight while the little Shandorian girl gets taken aback by her new surroundings of the ancient city. "No way, is this my homeland?"

Luffy ignores the question as he looks around for the gold, but he sees a broken plaza instead. Not being able to see who's there from the great height that they're on, he runs ahead to see if his friends are there.

Pierre flies after the pirate alone, since Aisa wants to run after them to get as much of a feel of her homeland as possible.

As she runs through the town, Aisa grows more amazed at the ruins as she takes in the view. When she's almost to the plaza, she stops when she sees a light blue glow from the window of a nearby building.

She hums in curiosity as she gets a closer look at what's inside and spots a pair of shining, two colored, gems on the table for a moment before she hears Luffy's distressed shouts. "ZORO, ROBIN, CHOPPER, KNIGHT GUY!"

The child follows his yells to the square and looks in horror to see that not only were the pirates and the knight were unconscious from electrocution, but her tribe's strongest warrior as well. "WIPER?!"

She runs up to her fellow Shandorian to see that he's still breathing. Tears start forming in her eyes as she tries to wake him up, but he won't get up.

Luffy goes next to Zoro and grabs him by the shoulder to try to shake him awake. "Zoro, what happened?!"

Zoro stays unconscious, with the only way for Luffy to see that he's alive is the rising and falling of his chest.

The captain furrows his eyes at his friends' conditions as he grows angrier by the minute. "Who the hell did this?"

"It has to be Eneru!" Aisa says as she lets Wiper rest.

Luffy lays Zoro on the ground as he turns to her. "Is Eneru the god?"

Aisa nods as she looks back at the fried snake that they were trapped in. "My mantra couldn't reach outside when we were eaten, so I don't know what happened, but I'm sure it was him!"

They stop when they hear Robin stirring, so Luffy runs up to her and gently lifts her torso up. "Robin, what happened?!"

Robin weakly looks up to her captain as she speaks up, barely loud enough to whisper. "W-we fought Eneru... He took navigator-san and wind-chan..."

"He did what?!" Luffy asks in fury.

"Listen to me." Robin weakly says as both Luffy, Aisa, and Pierre listen. "Eneru plans to destroy everything. Both this island and the people on it... We need to..."

She couldn't finish her sentence when her consciousness fades away.

"Robin, hey!" Luffy tries to wake her up, but it's no good.

Aisa gets up and focuses her mantra until she senses Rose, Nami, and Eneru's auras. "I know where they're going. I can hear their voices."

Luffy nods as he gently sets his crew mate down. "Tell me which way to go..."

Aisa silently agrees as she points in the direction that his friends are heading, so he can run off on his own. Aisa rushes to get on Pierre's back and flies off to guide the pirate in finding the god that's caused this island so much grief.

* * *

Nami quietly follows Eneru through the island as she drags her waver with her. She looks nervously to Rose, who's still sleeping on Eneru's shoulder, and hopes that she'll wake up before she has to put the sea stone on her, so they can escape.

She tries to stall for time by looking around their surroundings. "S-so, how long until reach the ship?"

"Not long." Eneru says as he leads them through a cavern entrance without missing a step.

She swallows a lump in her throat when she looks at Rose and comes up with a way to distract him. "Umm, about Rose, is her mantra really that strange?"

Eneru stops and looks at her in confusion before he glances at the teen on his shoulder. "Is that what her name is? Not very godlike, but we can always change it."

He chuckles to himself as he looks to his frightened follower. "As for your question, yes it is different. It completely stands out in comparison to an average human."

"Why is that? Have you sensed any others like that?"

He only smirks at the constant questions as he starts walking again. "This is my first time meeting someone of my caliber, and that's because gods like us are rare. I'm surprised none of you pirates figured out what she is when she used her abilities."

Nami forces herself to tolerate his arrogant attitude as she continues to follow him and tries to distract him more. "Well, she hasn't been with us for long, but we had our doubts. There was always something weird about her."

Eneru scowls at the remark as he looks at the path ahead. "It seemed that way because she pretended to be someone she isn't. When we get to the dream world, I'll take her under my wing so that she'll realize her potential as a goddess."

Nami raises an eyebrow at the plan to act as a mentor to her crew mate. "Is it really worth it? If she ever gets free, she'll fight you."

He narrows her eyes at the redhead, who flinches at the look, but he still answers her because he truly believes that one day Rose will thank him for doing this to her. "Unlike humans, my kind is worth saving. You should be grateful that I'm sparing you."

"O-of course." Nami gives him a completely fake grin as they reach a clearing in the deepest part of the cave where the ship is being held.

When the navigator looked at the magnificent wooden ark with a golden face in on the middle of the ship, she was shell shocked. What she truly can't believe though, are the propellers and paddles that are surrounding the ship. "Don't tell me..."

Eneru grins at her surprise as he moves towards the vessel. "Surprised, aren't you? Well you should be. This flying ship is the only one suitable for and can only be controlled by me. This is the Ark Maxim."

Nami tenses up at the flying ship then looks at Rose, whose eyes are clenched shut in her sleep as she's being taken to the ship. _*This is bad...*_

"Don't dawdle." Eneru says which snaps her back to reality. She timidly looks at the sea stone on the waver, that Eneru will have her use on her friend. She knows that she can't toss it or else she'll get electrocuted, so she reluctantly follows him aboard with a heavy heart.

All the while, Rose has been starting to breath heavily as her situation unknowingly gets worse by the minute.

* * *

 _"Pathetic!" The sounds of someone getting shoved is the only thing that can be heard in the empty, middle school staircase as thirteen year old Marie, Laura, and four girls, who are a year younger, corner two girls with shoulder length red hair._

 _With school having ended twenty minutes ago, the pale thirteen year old, that's getting harassed, knows that help won't arrive, so she glares at the bullies as she gets in a fighting stance in front of her younger sister. "We're not paying you, so go away."_

 _Marie chuckles at the bravery as she looks to her twin. "Did we ever say that this was about money Laura?"_

 _The blonde girl shakes her head as she narrows her blue eyes on the younger ginger. "Not this time sis, we just wanted to give the newbie a proper welcome to the school."_

 _The scratched up sixth grader nervously shifts behind her sister to try to hide herself. "Sarah..."_

 _The older sister narrows her green eyes on the girls as she keeps her guard up. "You guys have the comet freak to mess with, don't you? Go keep your bully reputation up with her."_

 _Carrie snickers at the complaint as she pushes her black hair back. "We would, but she already left-"_

 _She's cut off when orange peels are chucked at the back of her head. She practically shrieks in disgust, as she wipes fruit fragments off her hair, while the others look to the top of the staircase to see twelve year old Rose casually standing next to a trash can.  
_

 _The freckled girl smirks at her foster sisters' squad as she flips them off with one hand and grabs a banana peel from the trash with the other. "Score one for the badass otaku and zero for the priss squad. Which one of you bitches wants to be my next target?"_

 _Peggy grits her white teeth at her as she storms up the stairs to avenge Carrie, but her reward is the banana peel being thrown at her face._

 _She nearly falls down the stairs when two other girls from Marie and Laura's crew catch her while Carrie, Marie, and Laura furiously go after the brunette._

 _Rose couldn't contain her laughter from their reaction as she runs off to the empty halls. The bullies completely forget about the redheads as they go after their regular victim._

 _"Get back here, you ugly psycho!" Marie calls out, but Rose only turns a corner._

 _Laura clenches her tan hands in fury as they keep going after the fast girl. "Don't think dad won't hear about this, you stupid orphan!"_

 _Rose grits her teeth at her insult as she glares at them. "How about you fight your own battles?! That is, if you can actually touch me!"_

 _The girls shiver from the frightening look in her purple eyes, but they won't let her have her way as they run after her._

 _When Rose sees the door to another staircase coming up, she's confident that she can lose them when she gets to the next floor because of the safe distance she made. She quickly takes them down to the first floor, but when she reaches the door to the hallway she finds it locked. *Are you kidding?!*_

 _She hears the doors on the second floor slam open, she looks around for another way out, but she's trapped with her foster sisters and their top crony blocking her only way out._

 _"Looks like it's score three for the beauties, and now zero for the comet worshipper." Carrie says as all three of them surround her._

 _Rose clicks her tongue at them as she gets in a stance and starts to fight them off. While both sides were able to give damage to each other, Rose manages to end up the victor. Once the last of them were on the floor with bloody noses, the freckled girl remains towering over them as she catches her breath from the fight._

 _The brunette ignores the pain from the bruises and scratches on her pale face and body as she glares at them. "You guys can bully me all you want, but leave everyone else alone."_

 _The three girls don't listen to her lecture as they weakly glare at her._

 _Marie smirks up at her and speaks soft enough for Rose to barely hear. "Do you get off on the pain or something? Your parents must be really disgusted with their failure. That is, if they were still alive."_

 _Rose's fury overwhelms her as she picks her up by the collar, and punches her in the face, just when the door to the second floor opens._

 _"What did you do?!"_

 _Rose looks over her shoulder, with her glare still intact, to see that the two girls that she helped, along with a teacher, are looking at Rose in fear of her frightening look and the collapsed girls._

 _Her anger quickly fades from the terrified stares, that she always hates receiving. It doesn't take long for her to see how bad this looks, and gently puts her foster sister down to ease the situation. "They were bullying those girls. I was trying to get them to stop."_

 _"That doesn't mean you can beat them to a pulp, you dirty animal!" The teacher says as she rushes to the beaten girls while Rose goes up the stairs to get out of her way. When she gets closer to the redheads, the older one instinctively steps in front of her sister to protect her from the outcast._

 _The younger one stays quiet as she timidly stares at Rose, while Sarah glares at her with a hint of fear in her eyes. "Just get out of here before you cause more damage..."_ _  
_

 _Rose didn't need to be told twice as she runs up to the second floor. As she rushes down the long hallway, she tightens her fists in frustration as the frightened stares are fresh in her mind. *Dammit, why does something like this happen whenever I try to help?!*_

 _"Because you're not human."_

 _Rose stops at Eneru's voice and finds that her surroundings have changed from her middle school to the plaza of Shandoria._

 _She looks down to see that she's in her seventeen year old body, then sees that the whole crew's there and fully healed. "Guys, you're ok?! That's great, where's-"_

 _"Shut the hell up!" She freezes when she sees Zoro glaring at her like she's their enemy. "How long did you think you can trick us?!"_

 _Rose flinches at his tone and looks to see that she's not getting any better looks from the others as they give her looks of either hate or fear. "W-what do you mean?"_

 _"We know that your mantra's different because you're not from this world. Don't try denying that you have knowledge about all of us either." Robin says as her cold blue eyes can practically turn her to ice._

 _Rose tenses up at the revealed secret as she nervously steps up and pleads her case. "Ok, it's true that I'm not from this world. But I've been trying to use what I know to help you guys!"_

 _"Did your 'help' save Merry or did you just bullshit about that holy land crap to mess with me?!" Usopp asks as he stays in the back of the group with a frightened Chopper._

 _Rose widens her eyes at the accusation as she timidly shakes her head. "I wasn't trying to mess with you, I was-!"_

 _"Save it, we can't believe anything you say!" Nami says as she drops her guitar case in front of her. "Go fly off to whatever world you want, but you can't stay with us! You're on your own!"_

 _Rose's heart sinks to her stomach at the announcement as she watches them abandon her without another glance. However, when she sees Luffy still standing around, with his hat covering his eyes, she silently hopes that he's still on her side. "Luffy, I-"_

 _"Shut up!" She flinches at the hateful command when she sees his dark eyes narrowed on her. "You should've told me that Alabasta was my last good time with Ace! You could've helped him more, but you were too busy protecting your precious secret! I wish I've never taken you out of Little Garden!"_

 _Her heart completely shatters at his words as she watches him rejoin his crew and leave her without a single friend. "Luffy..."_

 _"Yahahaha, what did I tell you little one? You were never one of them to begin with."_

 _Rose turns around to the voice behind her to see Eneru smirking down at her from the top of a building._

 _He chuckles at her distraught as he hops off to approach her. "Now that you understand what you are, let's go to the dream world together."_

 _She tries to fight him, but her wind doesn't work, so she runs off before he can touch her._

 _Eneru sighs in disappointment as he creates an electric dragon to go after her. "So you'll still resist? So be it then."_

 _She looks back in horror of the terrifying beast as she jumps to fly, but nothing happens. *Why the hell isn't my wind working?!*_

 _She lands on her feet and searches for any kind of help as she runs away from the monster, but she finds herself completely alone._

 _Just when she reaches the coast line, the view of the Going Merry leaving her behind, with the ship's captain glaring at her, is the last thing she sees before the dragon bites through her body, and her agonizing screams fall to her former crew's deaf ears._

* * *

Rose's tear filled eyes shoot open in fright as she sits up in a cold sweat and takes rapid breaths. As her heart rate begins to slow down, she takes in her new surroundings to find herself sitting on the deck of the Ark Maxim. _*He took me too?! Wait, where's Nami?!*_

She takes a deep breath to calm down as she goes to wipe her tears, but she finds that she can't move her hands up. She looks over her shoulder to see that her wrists are tied behind her back, with her arms wrapped around one of the bars that are holding the railing, to keep her in place. "What the hell?!"

She tries to turn her arm into air, but it doesn't work, so she frantically tugs at the tight ropes as her heart rate picks up. _*This can't be happening!*_

As her body feels twice as heavy, she barely gives in as she uses every ounce of the little energy she has to wildly struggle in the ropes and tries to use her power, but she can't make a single gust.

"Rose, take is easy!" The brunette doesn't listen to the command as she keeps struggling while Nami is running to her side, after she parked her waver on the side deck.

As soon as Nami makes it to her, she kneels in front of her, out of kicking range from her free legs, and doesn't try to touch the panicking girl in fear of her making it worse. "Don't struggle so much, your powers won't work!"

Rose finally returns to her senses when she hears this and starts catching her breath as she looks at Nami's eyes to see that they hold not only the truth, but also guilt and concern for her friend.

She pulls her knees to her chest, and buries her face in them to recompose herself as she rests from her struggling. While she wipes her face on her jeans to get rid of her tears, she realizes that there's something hard touching both of her raw wrists, and the inside of her forearms centered between her elbows and hands. She pulls her head up and looks over her shoulder, in between the bars, and sees a small, blue, rough edged, stone cinched in between the ropes, and bulges under her jacket sleeves to confirm her suspicions. "You tied sea stone on me..."

"Yahahaha, it didn't take long for you to figure it out." The girls look at the door to see Eneru coming outside to go sit on his golden throne with a satisfied look on his face. "Your friend there re-wrapped the bandages on both of your arms to keep the sea stone fragments on your skin, before she used the rope. When you can be trusted, I'll have her take them off you."

Rose scowls at the man then she looks down to see that her sword isn't on her belt. When she sees her weapon on Nami's belt, she mentally curses how slim her chances are.

Eneru smirks at her situation as he gets ready to power the ship, but he stops when he senses something approaching. "Now what's this?"

Both girls look at him in confusion as he goes to the railing on the other side of the ship with a scowl. "This can't be right. Why is there another mantra coming?"

Rose freezes at the question before she happily grins, as her fingers try to pull out the stone, that's tightly tied in between her wrists, and discreetly rubs her arms against the wooden bar, that they're wrapped around, to get the stone themselves to cut off the bandages that are holding them in place. "Sounds like Luffy's here."

Nami widens her eyes at what she said before she runs to where Eneru is to see that she's right, for Luffy's standing on the ground below them. "Luffy..."

Luffy glares up at the god as he cracks his knuckles. "What did you do to my friends?!"

Eneru scoffs at the question as he glowers down at him. "Show some respect, you're talking to god."

"Yea right, you don't look like a god at all!" Luffy says, as Aisa and Pierre stay hidden by the cavern entrance.

Eneru snickers at the disbelief as he watches the intruder run to the ship. "I'll show you soon enough."

Luffy stretches his arms to the railing to slingshot himself towards the deck.

The god hums in interest as he watches him get onto the railing. "Looks like you're not an average mortal."

He smirks at the new opponent as his body surges with electricity. "No matter, because god's judgement is final!"

Before Luffy could react a flash of lightning flies directly to the pirate.

"LUFFY!" Nami calls out worriedly as the lightning goes straight at Luffy and all the way to the cavern wall behind him.

Rose can't see her captain at all, with the golden face blocking her view, but seeing Eneru and Nami's shocked faces from when Luffy survived the blast keeps her entertained as she tiredly works to free herself.

Meanwhile, Nami and Eneru couldn't believe their eyes when they see Luffy with barely a scratch on him from the electricity.

Assuming that he only dodged the blow, Eneru powers up his electricity to a higher voltage. "You're better than I thought. Let's see if you can avoid 60 million volts."

He creates a dragon that's made entirely out of electricity and lets it fly at Luffy. The captain doesn't have enough time to dodge though, so he takes the hit.

Once the blast fades away, Eneru and Nami find Luffy still standing as if he wasn't struck by anything at all.

Eneru takes matters into his own hands by rushing to Luffy to grab his shoulder and blasts him with as much electricity as possible.

Nami steps back from the strong blast as she figures out that Luffy isn't getting hurt, because his rubber body is immune to electricity.

That is complete news to Eneru though, because when he stops his electricity, his enemy is still standing.

"You're being annoying!" Luffy says as he punches Eneru in the gut to send him flying backwards.

The electric man manages to catch himself before he fell off the railing, and sees Luffy running after him. He assumes that Luffy's attack was just a fluke, so he prepares his body to become electricity.

With Rose able to see Luffy running to Eneru now, she stops rubbing her arms to catch her breath from how draining the stones are, and sees Luffy furiously kick Eneru in the stomach. As Rose watches Eneru collapse from the badass move, her anxiety fades away for she knows for a fact that Luffy will win.

She sighs in relief of not ruining anything when she feels a pair of dark eyes staring at her.

She looks up to see her captain running up to her with worry about her electrocuted and imprisoned condition. "Are you alright?!"

Rose nods with a small grin and shrugs at his worries as she acts like this is a normal conversation. "I've seen better days, but I'll live."

Nami couldn't believe how casual she's acting, when she woke up in a panic attack just moments ago. Then again, waking up tied to a bar could send anyone in a frenzy. However, the way she's so calm around Luffy right now, it makes her wonder if she still remembers her situation.

Luffy on the other hand, doesn't find her calmness to be odd as he looks at the rope, that are holding her wrists together, and reaches over the railing for it. "Why haven't you used your wind to get out of-?"

"Don't touch, there's sea stone on me, and Eneru's getting back up!" Rose says before he could touch the rope and warily looks to see their enemy getting up.

Luffy pulls away as he remembers that Eneru's the one who's caused her so much pain, and wants nothing more than to kick his ass right now. As his blood begins to boil, he takes his hat off and pushes it onto his astronomer's head for safe keeping. "I'll get you out after I kick his ass."

Rose shifts her eyes up to his beloved hat, that he's trusting her with, before she gets back to trying to release herself with newfound determination. "Just focus on kicking the crap out of him captain."

He didn't need to be told again as he goes towards his opponent with fury in his eyes.

Eneru narrows his eyes on the boy as he tightens his grip on the golden staff in his hand. "What the hell are you?"

"I'm a rubber man." Luffy says as he charges the electric man.

Eneru raises an eyebrow at the explanation, for he's never heard of the substance before. "Rubber?"

"It means I'm immune to lightning!" He goes to punch Eneru, but he easily dodges before he clashes with the rubber boy.

Nami stares at the fight in awe, before she looks at the brunette and widens her eyes to see her rubbing her jacket covered arms on the railing. She avoids the clash between the two warriors as she runs across the deck to her.

As she sits next to Rose, she looks to see that her fingers are struggling to pull off the stone in between her wrists, so she moves the sheath of Rose's sword in between the bars until it pushes the stone that's situated in between Rose's ropes closer to her hands, and softly speaks to her. "Try rubbing your arms horizontally. I had to add a few layers so Eneru won't be suspicious, but you might be able to slip them off."

Rose lightly pants from exhaustion, when she finally manages to pull the stone out of her ropes, and throws it away. As some of her energy begins to return, she slowly nods to the plan. "Ok, thanks."

She works on pulling her arms towards her then back out repeatedly in an attempt to slip them off as they observe the fight. What they see only worries them more, because Eneru is managing to dodge every one of Luffy's attacks with his mantra.

"Gum Gum Gatling!" Luffy jumps above Eneru and goes to give him a barrage of his fastest punches, but when the first attacks go towards him Eneru easily catches both his arms.

To say Luffy was surprised was an understatement as the electric man flips him over and pile drives him through the deck.

"Luffy!" Nami calls out worriedly when he doesn't come out of the hole yet.

Rose grits her teeth as she feels the stones on her arms not moving in the slightest from her struggles. _*How tight did she freaking bandage them?!*_

Eneru chuckles at the futile attacks as he abandons the hole to go towards the foot of the stairs to the throne where two golden poles proudly stand. "You shouldn't be surprised that I can predict your punches. I am god after all. Despite your futile efforts, I suppose you earned a chance to witness the island's destruction."

He grabs onto the two poles and releases the electricity onto them to activate the ship.

As Luffy climbs out of the hole, the girls are stunned to see that his electricity is working to activate the multiple propellers that are installed all around the ship.

When it goes outside, With Aisa following at a distance on Pierre's back, it stays at a height where it can travel freely, but not high enough to avoid plowing down every tree and boulder in its path.

Nami starts trembling from how their situation is getting worse, because if Luffy doesn't take down Eneru soon, she can't guarantee that there will be a sky island for them to return to.

"Luffy, hurry and-"

"Calm down." Luffy says as he glares at Eneru.

"But-"

"You're friends with the future king of the pirates, so stop worrying!"

Nami barely calms down at the reassurance while Eneru becomes intrigued with the title. "What country does the pirate king rule?"

"He rules over the sea."

The electric man snickers at the explanation as he infuses move electricity into the circuits and looks up with a smirk. "Interesting, we can see who would win as the island's being destroyed."

The pirates look up and widen their eyes at the large exhaust pipe at the top of the ship that's producing a dark smog.

Eneru chuckles at their shock as he explains the expanding thunder cloud. "This is called Death piea. This thunder cloud will produce enough currents to create lightning that's ten times stronger than mine. Allow me to demonstrate."

He lifts a hand up to manipulate the electric currents in the clouds until it sends a lightning bolt towards a group of trees in the forest to obliterate them to ash.

Nami lightly gasps at the powerful lightning when she sees more flashing in the direction of Angel Beach. "That can kill everyone..."

"WHAT THE HELL'S WRONG WITH YOU?! WHAT DID THEY DO TO YOU?!" Luffy angrily yells out.

Eneru simply scoffs at his opponent's rage. "They didn't need to do anything. As god, I can do whatever I please because you're all in my mercy. That includes you."

He swings his golden staff at Luffy, with the rubber man dodging every swing.

Rose grits her teeth at the fight as she feels her bandages starting to stretch enough for the stones to slowly shift. A wave of relief comes over her as she keeps going. She sneaks a glance at the navigator to see her still being afraid of the outcome, so she nudges her with her knee.

Nami looks over at her in confusion to see her calmly grinning at her as she whispers. "Don't worry so much, Luffy can kick his-"

"Gum Gum Baka!" The girls look in confusion to see that Luffy has cleared his mind of all thought as he looks at Eneru as blankly as possible.

Eneru raises an eyebrow at the ridiculous face he's making before he goes to jab him, but every move he makes get avoided with the rubber man using his natural reflexes to dodge.

Nami immediately figures out that he's not thinking about his moves at all so Eneru can't predict them. "Wow, that's-"

Luffy jumps back to avoid the last attack and huffs in exhaustion as his face returns to normal. "Damn, I can't attack when I do that."

"I was going to praise you, you idiot!" Nami says when he avoids another one of Eneru's attacks.

Rose bites the inside of her cheek to keep herself from laughing before she looks towards the back of the ship to see a pair of grappling hooks connected to the rail. She widens her eyes at the hooks and looks over her shoulder to see Sanji and Usopp holding onto the ropes for dear life as they start climbing. _*Crap, there's not much time!*_

She feels the stone shifting further to her wrists and doesn't give up even when she feels like she's on the brink of passing out.

As Luffy dodges another of Eneru's strikes, he looks to the golden wall while he comes up with an idea. "I got it!"

He jumps towards the golden wall with Eneru going after him. "Nothing you can do will work."

"We'll see! Gum gum-!" Luffy stretches his limbs to punch and kick the golden wall so that his attacks will ricochet off the metal and towards the god. "Octopus Rampage!"

Eneru smirks at the attack as he begins to dodge, but with how random the attacks are going he can't avoid them all and begins taking the barrage of attacks.

As he's sent flying backwards Luffy doesn't hesitate to run after him as he pulls his arms back and pushes them at him. "Gum Gum Bazooka!"

Eneru stumbles onto the deck as he gets up but Luffy doesn't ease up as he pulls his fist back one more time and punches him straight in the gut.

As Eneru coughs up blood on the deck, Luffy and Nami stumble when the ship suddenly rises higher into the sky.

"What's going on?!" Nami asks, but Rose can't give her an answer as they watch Eneru stumble up.

He lightly pants as he narrows his eyes on the rubber boy. "Damn you, everything would be perfect if you weren't around! A god like me won't lose to a pathetic human like you!"

Electricity starts cracking out of his body as he smirks up at the thundercloud above them. "After all, no matter what you do, this island will be destroyed."

"Shut up!" Luffy stretches his fist at Eneru just as the fake god uses his electricity to manipulate the golden wall behind him to extract a large amount of melted gold off the wall.

When Luffy's hand gets close to him, he side steps to avoid the punch and manipulates the gold to harden into a golden ball around his rubber arm.

Luffy cringes at the heat coming from the hardened metal as his body gets pulled towards the metal ball. "What the hell?!"

Eneru chuckles at his situation as he watches him try to pull his arm free in vain. "Looks like it's over."

"Luffy!" Nami calls out worriedly.

Rose clenches her teeth in rage as she pulls forward, but the stones are still stuck on her arms. With her unable to use her devil fruit, and the ropes keeping her in place, she and Nami can only watch as Eneru kicks the golden ball off the ship.

"You can keep the gold as a parting gift." Eneru says as Luffy's body gets dragged to the railing. He struggles to keep himself aboard the ship as he tries to pull the heavy gold, that's trapping his arm, back onto the ship. However, the gold is too heavy for him to stay on much longer as his free hand grips the railing so that he doesn't flip over.

Eneru smirks at the struggling pirate as he approaches him. "Now that you're out of the way, there won't be anyone to stand in the way of my dream world."

"That's not true!" Luffy says as he glares at the fake god. "No matter where you go, there are a lot of monstrous guys who can take you down!"

"Silence!" He swings his staff at Luffy's head and knocks him over the railing to fall to the island.

"Luffy!" Nami cries out as she runs to the other side of the deck to see Luffy falling with Aisa and Pierre flying after the captain.

"YOU BASTARD!" Rose calls out to Eneru as she gets on her feet, but the ropes still hold her arms back as the stones manage to reach her wrists. "You won't get out of this unharmed!"

Eneru chuckles at her childish behavior. "You're still worried about these humans? They need to learn their place. Just like this one."

He looks to Nami before he walks towards his throne. "She understands that the only way to survive is to side with the gods and that's what she's done. Now instead of dying like the rest of the island, she will have treasure along with hope for the future."

Nami clenches her teeth at what he said, as she starts walking to Rose. "I do have hope for the future, but I won't have one if I side with you."

Rose widens her eyes at what she said when she sees her reaching for the sword on her belt. With no idea on what she's going to do, she frantically rubs her arms to the bar until she feels her stones, starting to come out of the bandages on her wrists, just above the ropes.

As the wind girl reaches her fingers for the power sealing rocks, Eneru raises an eyebrow at her declaration. "What are you talking about?"

"What good is treasure without all my friends?!" Nami asks as she looks to Rose with remorse for putting her in this situation and unsheathes her katana. "I'd rather be dead than to betray them!"

She goes to cut the ropes, but before she could touch them, Rose gives her a low roundhouse kick to the shin so that she instantly falls on her butt, right before she ducks to avoid Eneru's lightning.

Nami sits up and looks in shock to see the brunette scowling at her.

Rose doesn't back down as her fingers reach for the tied on stones. "What the crap were you thinking to try something so crazy?!"

Nami twitches an eyebrow at the complaint from the most reckless girl she knows, as she drops the sword. "You're one to talk, you rival Luffy in craziness!"

"What was that?!"

"Now, now little one. If she wants to die, then who are we to deny her?" Eneru says with a smirk as electricity starts flying out of his body.

Nami widens her eyes at how much trouble she's in, but it's too late to back down so she reaches for her clima-tact.

The god sighs in fake disappointment of her intention to fight him. "You really are unwise. Even if you freed her, the result would be the same." His malicious smirk grows wider as he senses the two pirates who snuck onto the ship. "Or was it that you were relying on the two rats who snuck on board to save you?"

Nami looks at him in complete confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"Two idiots have snuck in while we were close to the ground. It seems like they're here to rescue you. Just foolish if you ask me."

 _*Good thing nobody asked you then.*_ Rose pulls her arms as close to her as possible to push the stones towards her hands, that are straining reach them.

Nami realizes that it's Usopp and Sanji that he's referring to, because they're the only ones who didn't lose in the ruins. However, she doesn't have a lot of time to think about it as she jumps to the side to dodge the attack. Eneru doesn't hesitate to strike her again, but this time she's prepared as she uses her weather weapon to create an electric bubble to redirect the electric current.

He chuckles in amusement as he doesn't let up. "Now that's a really interesting weapon."

Nami doesn't give in as she continues to block at every turn. He powers up his electricity for a higher voltage attack. "I'm sure your little trick won't work with an attack of this power."

Nami widens her eyes in fear of the attack, just as Rose's fingers grab the sea stones and drops them to the island. She immediately feels her body grow lighter as her powers immediately return, and blasts a hot gust of wind at Eneru to get his attention away from her friend. The trick works because he looks to her with an un-amused look and aims at her. "You shouldn't have taken the stones off."

Rose turns an arm into air to get herself out of the ropes just in time to avoid the blast.

Nami quietly sighs in relief that she's not fighting this mad man alone anymore, but as she looks at Eneru's face she braces herself for the worst.

The electric man doesn't waste time in creating another blast for his enemies, but he stops when he has to lift his hand to blast an explosive that was going straight at him.

The girls were stunned at the blast and look at where it came from to see that Usopp fired at Eneru with his whole body shaking in fear. "I-I'm sorry!"

"Don't be sorry for blasting him!" Rose says with Nami surprised that he made it.

Eneru chuckles in amusement for the futile attempt to surprise him. "Thank you for saving me the trouble of hunting you down when this was done."

Usopp flinches at the remark as he looks around to see that the chef that snuck aboard with him hasn't shown up yet. "Where's Sanji?"

"He came here too?!" Nami asks.

"You're saying he didn't get out here yet?!" Usopp asks with Rose calmly nodding.

"In that case..." With a look of determination, the sniper goes back inside and closes the door behind him.

"GET OUT HERE!" Nami yells at him.

When the sniper steels his nerves, he goes outside for a fight. "Bring it god!"

Eneru throws his lightning at him, and makes Usopp immediately regret going outside as he jumps out of the way to join the girls.

Rose steps forward and cracks her knuckles. "You two, find a way off this boat."

Her two friends couldn't believe what they're hearing as Rose tosses Luffy's hat to Nami and fires a blast of wind at the god.

He easily dodges and faces the wind girl without hesitation while Usopp and Nami get away from the battle.

As the navigator runs, she looks down at the hat in her hands that Luffy entrusted to Rose. The only reason that Rose would give his treasure to her is because she doesn't know if she could go back to return it herself. She clenches onto the straw hat, before she pins it to her belt, and calls out to the astronomer. "IF YOU LOSE AGAIN I'M FINING YOU!"

Rose flinches at the threat, but can't help but smirk at the untold message for her to win. "I'LL GIVE YOU MY OWN FINE IF YOU DON'T GET OUT OF HERE!"

Eneru sighs in disappointment of Rose's resolve to protect the humans as he dodges her wind blasts. "You really are too stubborn for your own good."

He creates a lightning blast for her to dodge before she turns her arm into air. "That's the first time that you were right about me. Here's your reward!"

She blasts her wind to the right to and allows it to go in whatever direction it wants. Eneru jumps into the air before he could take the chance as he power's his electricity. "You're wasting your time!"

She flies out of the way while Eneru looks towards the pirates who found the waver on the side deck. "You won't get away!"

He aims a bolt of lightning at the pirates so the two of them split up. Nami manages to reach the waver and begins to start it up.

However, Eneru fires electricity in all directions that are random for even himself and makes it difficult for them all to avoid.

Nami ducks to avoid the blast as she starts getting the waver running.

Usopp however is running around like a chicken with his head cut off as he avoids the blasts coming at him.

Rose is flying around to avoid the blasts before she aims her wind arm at him. "That's enough!"

She fires her wind arm directly at the god for him to jump to dodge. Usopp uses this chance to go to Nami as she spots the boat flying past the beanstalk.

She starts driving towards the railing, and reaches out to Usopp, who's running towards her. "Usopp, take my hand!"

Usopp reaches out to her, but before he can take Nami's hand a stray bolt of lightning strikes him down.

Rose grit her teeth as she slams Eneru down with her wind, before she flies to avoid his blast.

Nami misses her chance to grab Usopp, and gets ready to turn around for him, but before she could, Sanji runs outside and throws the sniper onto the waver.

"SANJI?!" Nami calls out, but he shows no signs of going after them as he watches them ride off the ship.

The chef sees Eneru about to blast him, but Rose uses her wind to lift him up to avoid the blast.

Sanji grins at the assist, but it quickly fades when he sees the wind taking him towards the falling waver. "Rose-chan, what are you-?!"

"This is payback for Drum Island!" Rose says as she throws him onto the waver for him to collapse on Usopp.

Eneru creates a thunderbird to go after them, but Rose flies in between them and creates a wind barrier to stop the bird.

"ROSE!" The pirates call out to their crew mate as they land on the cloud island on the beanstalk safely, but it fell to deaf ears as the flying ark sails off.

Rose cringes from the strong blast as some of the lightning in the barrier redirects at her, before she manages to destroy her cyclone along with the bird.

She lands on the deck to catch her breath as she darkly chuckles at her enemy. "Game over, you prick."

Eneru scowls at her cheekiness as he looks to the island. "Whether or not they're on the ship, I can still strike them with god's judgement."

"I meant with your ship. What do you think the blond was doing this whole time?" She points to the exhaust pipe, that's no longer creating the thunder cloud, and keeps a prideful smirk for Sanji sneaking inside to mess with the ship's mechanics.

He follows her stare and drops his jaw when he sees that the smog's no longer being created.

"What?!" He turns around to go inside, but before go fix his machines, he gets hit in the back by a strong blast of wind until his face slams into the golden face.

"You're not going anywhere." Rose says snaps her fingers three times with her right hand to create a group of tornadoes with a devilish smirk. "That is, unless you want me to destroy the rest of your ship."

Eneru narrows his eyes at the threat as electricity flies out of him. "Have it your way."

* * *

A little while after Luffy left to fight Eneru, Robin managed to regain her consciousness. With knowing that the island is in danger, she sprouted feet under Zoro, Wiper and the sky knight to have them bring her unconscious comrades with her as she carries Chopper up the beanstalk.

She brings them back to the island cloud and looks in horror at the flying arc that's soaring across the sky. When she sees tornadoes growing on the ship with lightning shooting at them, she can't help but worry about what's happening on there.

"Robin!" The archaeologist snaps out of it at Luffy's voice coming from below the ruins and looks down to see Aisa and Pierre are being thrown at her.

She sprouts a net of arms to catch the girl and the bird before she gently drops them.

While Aisa and Pierre are shocked about the extra limbs, Robin looks down to see Luffy climbing up with the giant golden orb still attached to his arm. "Is that a ball of gold on your hand?"

Luffy ignores the question as he climbs past her and goes further up the vine. "Eneru's going to where the golden bell is right?! Will this vine take me there?!"

Robin nods as she looks up at slowly moving ship. "Yea, but you don't have much time to get there."

Luffy rushes up there with determination, when the others hear a waver being used.

As it gets louder, Robin looks to see Nami riding towards them with Sanji carefully hugging her waist with a happy grin while Usopp holds onto Sanji.

When Nami sees Robin awake, she happily grins at her as she waves. "Robin! You're ok!"

"Robin-chwan! I missed you!" Sanji says as he gets off the waver.

Usopp follows him off and looks at the unconscious warriors in horror. "Everyone's down!"

"Nami, you're ok!" Aisa runs to the navigator and tackles her in a hug.

Nami quickly hugs back before she looks around for her captain. "Where's Luffy?!"

"He went up the vine to rescue you and the wind girl!" Aisa says as she points up.

Nami and the others look up and widen their eyes when they see electricity and tornadoes flying above the floating arc.

"Why didn't she fly off yet?!" Usopp asks as he looks up at the ship in fear of having to go back.

"Maybe to make sure that we don't get struck by lightning." Robin says as she looks up at the ship in thought.

Nami grips onto the handlebars of the waver before she turns to the others. "You guys get back on the ship. I'll help Luffy grab her and catch up with you guys."

The others were surprised about the plan, as they watch her ride up the beanstalk without any chance to argue.

Usopp nervously looks up at the large thundercloud that's beginning to strike different parts of the island. "We should listen to her-"

"Wait." The others turn to the raider's voice and look in shock to see that he, Gan Fall, and Zoro are waking up while Chopper is still unconscious.

Wiper slowly gets up before he turns to Robin. "Tell me what you know about the golden bell..."

* * *

Eneru grows agitated from the tornado fight for every time he destroys one, another comes in its place just as strong if not more to send him flying inside and to break down nearby pieces of the ship. "I'VE HAD ENOUGH!"

He turns his whole body into electricity and flies straight through every tornado until he goes towards the wind girl.

Rose flies up and turns her arm into air to fly at him, it holds him back just enough avoid his attack, but she collapses on her knees by the railing from the exhaustion.

Eneru re-materializes before her and scowls at the girl before him as he manipulates his staff to transform into a two-pronged spear. "I give you a chance to live like the goddess you are, and this is how you repay me?"

"What chance?! You kidnapped me, you psycho!" She grabs her sword on the deck and gets up just in time to block the spear as it comes at her. However, before she can fly off, the smearing hot weapon breaks the blade off the hilt and goes at her.

She only had enough time of blow wind off her body to cool down the weapon before it stabs the pieces of the railing on both of her sides and plunges into the wood to trap her in between the dull edges of the weapon. She drops the broken sword and tries to pull the weapon off with her free arms, but it's wedged her in tightly to the wooden rails.

Eneru sighs at her struggles as he looks to the island. "And yet, you haven't run away yet. What was it that you were trying to accomplish by fighting me? Keep me distracted from this country's destruction by any chance?"

She glares at the man, for he's hit the mark on her intentions, while he looks up at the giant storm cloud above them and starts manipulating the electricity. "Those worthless humans don't deserve compassion, don't you see? There's no way for you to blend in with them."

"I know that!" Rose says as a last resort to buy more time for Luffy to get here. It manages to get his attention, for he turns to her with a look that tells her to keep going. She clenches her fists as she remembers her nightmare about her past and crew, and looks down at the deck to try to hide her pain. "I've fucking known since I was a kid that people will always be afraid of me. No matter what I did for them, that fact would never change..."

He raises an eyebrow at the confession, but he believes every word of it. "Then why go so far to protect them?"

She chuckles at the question, as she remembers Nami and Luffy's kindness towards her when she was powerless as Eneru's hostage, and looks up at him with a small grin. "Because, there's still some kind people out there. I honestly don't give a shit if I'm not human by your definition, or the rest of the world's for that matter. As long as those few good ones can see me as a friend then I'm happy."

Eneru scoffs at the sentiment as he gets back to manipulating the electricity in the clouds above them. "You're even more delusional than I thought. There is no such thing as a good human. It's better if this entire island falls out of the sky. Like so."

Rose loses her smile when she sees him lift his hand to manipulate the thunder cloud above him before a large lightning bolt hits onto Angel Island and eradicates the abandoned town.

"YOU BASTARD!" Both Rose and Eneru freeze at Luffy's voice and they look down to see the captain storming up the plant.

"I thought I heard a rat coming up." Eneru strikes the stem of the beanstalk just below Luffy and sends him falling.

While the god was distracted though, he didn't see Rose starting to turn her arms into wind until she aims at him.

He manages to jump out of the way in time, but he widens his eyes when she's still using her wind until the piece of the railing behind her breaks off from the pressure.

Rose uses his chance to escape by jumping backwards with the spear around her waist. She turns her arms back to normal, pulls the oversized fork off her, and flips Eneru off with a mischievous smirk. "I'll be taking this spear with me as payback for breaking my sword! Later asshole!"

He drops his jaw at the insult as he watches her fall off the ship with his spear. He grows furious at the escape, but he doesn't find it worth his time to go after her when he's so close to his true objective, the golden bell. When he sees a small cloud island floating in the west, where his prize is waiting for him, he directs his ship there and leaves his enemies behind.

Meanwhile, Luffy manages to land on a small island cloud that's close to where the peak used to be. He catches his breath from the climb as he glares at the ship that's holding his friends. However, his glare instantly fades away when he sees a scrawny girl falling from the ship with a golden two-pronged spear in hand "ROSE?!"

As the brunette's falling towards his cloud island, she grins at the captain as she waves at him. "Hey Lu-"

She stops when Luffy stretches his free arm around her waist and pulls her towards him. He pulls her to him so fast that she couldn't stop in time for her to crash into him and tackle him on the cloud.

She groans at the rough landing as Luffy laughs in joy while he gets up with his free arm still around her. "You escaped! Did Nami get out too?"

She can only nod as she covers her face to hide her blush from being in his embrace. "Y-yea, I made sure she got out safely. Thanks for coming though."

He tilts his head at her red face as he watches her shyly pull away from him. He goes to ask her about her feverish look, when he sees that she's not wearing his hat anymore. "Hey, where's my hat?"

"I gave it to Nami for safe keeping while I fought Eneru." Rose says, as she recovers from the blush.

He nods in understanding as he gets back on topic. "Then why was your face red-" He cuts himself off when he suddenly gets hit from behind by Nami's waver.

Rose drops her jaw at the crash as she watches Nami stop the waver only after she finished running over Luffy.

Luffy sits up and rubs his aching head before he grins at Nami. "Hey Nami, what are you doing back?"

"I came to get you guys! Get on-!" She yelps in fright when a strong lightning bolt strikes next to the beanstalk.

Luffy scowls up at the flying ship that's holding the cause to this island's pain and sees the golden bell in the distance. "No."

"What do you mean no?! Are you still trying to fight Eneru because-!"

"I don't need to fight Eneru, I need to get to the bell!" Luffy says with Nami not believing what she's hearing.

"You can't be serious! I'm normally all for getting treasure, but it's not worth dying over!"

"It's not about that! I need to ring it for diamond head!"

Rose raises an eyebrow at the nickname as if she hasn't heard it before. "Diamond head?"

"It's Luffy's name for Cricket, the guy who helped get our ship ready for the Knock Up Stream." Nami says while Luffy glares at the distance between them and the bell.

"If I ring it loud enough then he can hear it and know that this place exists. I need to ring it loud enough for the Blue Seas to hear it."

Nami hesitates as Rose steps up. "Alright, let's get you there then."

The navigator groans in frustration of their stubbornness before she grabs a leaf, that's almost as big as them, from the beanstalk.

The devil fruit users look at her in confusion as she writes a message on the leaf. "We're going to need all the help we can get for this. Rose, when the beanstalk starts falling, I'm going to need you to use your wind to help speed the boat. Can you do that?"

Rose nods with a smirk and hands her stolen weapon to Nami. "You got it."

She returns the smirk as she stabs the leaf with the giant fork so that it doesn't get blown away with the wind, and drops the leaf towards the ruins in hopes for her friends to receive it.

* * *

As soon as Wiper learned that the golden bell could be at the top of the beanstalk he wasted no time in beginning to climb.

"ARE YOU CRAZY?! YOU CAN'T GET TO THE FLYING SHIP FROM HERE!" Usopp calls out but it only fell to deaf ears until he was forced to jump off to avoid the falling tip of the beanstalk.

As soon as the raider lands on the ground, he collapses on his hands and knees from straining his injuries.

Aisa rushes over to her fellow Shandorian and helps him get up. "You can't overdo it like this."

He grits his teeth as he glares up at the giant plant. "I can't just give up now. I need to ring that bell..."

Zoro stares him down for a moment before he follows his eyes up to where his determined captain is. "You're wasting your time. Luffy already has plans to ring the bell."

"What did you say?" Wiper asks with Sanji nodding as he takes a cigarette out of his pocket.

"Knowing our captain, he won't stop until he rings the bell."

Wiper's fury starts to reignite at the thought of a Blue Sea pirate ringing the bell that is his mission to reach. "He has no right to-!"

He stops when a shadow looms over him and they all look up to see a giant leaf, that's pinned to a weapon, falling towards them. The group gets out of the way just in time for the leaf to safely land without hitting anyone.

"There's something written on there." Gan Fall says as everyone looks at the Nami's note to see that it's telling them to cut down the beanstalk so that it falls to the west.

"They must want to bridge the ship." Robin says as Zoro gets his swords out.

"Wait, you're seriously going to do it?! This is crazy!" Usopp says in horror of this mission.

"We have no other choice in this. He needs to get there now." Zoro says as he approaches the plant, but Sanji grabs the back of his shirt and drags him to the other side.

"We need to cut it from here to make it go west moss head." Sanji says with the others nodding.

Zoro groans at his annoying attitude, but he bites back his urge to argue as he runs to the direction Sanji told him to go. He takes out his three swords and slices a part of the plant's base before he has to jump to avoid a lightning strike.

Sanji runs to the tree as he scowls at the plant's summit. "Luffy had better not get Nami and Rose killed with this stunt!"

Jus managed to strike the plant to get it to start falling before a lightning bolt strikes him.

"SANJI!" The others call out worriedly when the chef falls unconscious from the blast. Another one follows after, but before it could hit him Zoro grabs him by the arm and throws him out of the way before he got struck.

"Guys!" Usopp calls as Pierre picks them up and brings them to the others.

Robin looks to see that the vine only moved slightly from their efforts. "We're going to need more power."

"Enough, that brat has no right to ringing the bell!" Wiper says as he staggers to them.

Usopp ignores his complaints as he goes off to blast the beanstalk with his explosives and jumps around so that he's not an easy target.

Wiper becomes furious at the efforts as he goes to stop him, before Robin speaks up. "Do you know the story of an explorer from the blue sea?"

He stops when he remembers the story of Noland and his ancestor Calgara's friendship. He can only stay silent as he listens to her.

"No one believed his story and called him a liar, but his descendant has been risking his life to clear his name by searching for the golden city. If I understand my captain right, he believes that ringing the bell will tell his descendant that the golden city has been up here this whole time. Even though he's risking his life to do so."

Wiper can only remain frozen as he processes this information before he asks her just one question. "What's the explorer's name?"

"Noland."

That name practically hits him like a hammer for he sees now that Luffy has been trying to help Noland's descendant this whole time. The sentiment moves him so much, that he wastes no time in getting his legs moving towards the beanstalk as Usopp keeps shooting at the plant.

"Out of the way!" He pushes the sniper out of the way before he runs to the vine with his reject dial in his hand. "REJECT!"

He blasts the base of the beanstalk with enough force to send him flying backwards.

"Did he just use a reject dial?!" Gan Fall asks as he runs to Wiper to see that he's still alive.

Aisa follows after, but stops when she sees that Wiper's dial did the trick, for the beanstalk is coming down. "He did it!"

She and the others take their wounded comrades deeper into the ruins for safety while the three pirates on the top of the beanstalk brace themselves.

Nami grips on the handlebars as she starts setting up the jet dial to the highest while Luffy holds onto Nami's waist with his free hand.

Rose holds onto Luffy's torso with one arm and holds the other one out behind her. "Whenever you're ready Nami."

She nods as she powers up the wavers and rides it up the beanstalk as fast as she can, with Rose's wind backing her up, while she avoids the falling lightning bolts. The handlebars begin to lightly shake from the pressure, but Nami does her best to keep it under control as she sees that Eneru's ship has stopped on a tiny cloud island.

When Luffy sees that Eneru's about leave his ship to approach the bell on the cloud island, he seethes in rage as the boat rides off the plant ramp. "ENERU! DON'T TOUCH THAT BELL!"

Eneru already knew that they were on their way to him, so he tiredly sighs as he gathers the lightning in the clouds above him. "You're just being bothersome now. I'll kill you with the rest of this island."

The three pirates widen their eyes when they see that Eneru's entire body has become electricity and has begun to gather the lightning from the thunder cloud above him.

"I'll take it from here!" Luffy says as Rose releases her hold on him so he can jump off the waver.

The waver lands on a tiny cloud island that can barely hold the girls as they watch the two warriors clash for the final time.

Neither side attempts to dodge the blows in the showdown as they take each other's hits.

As Luffy kicks Eneru and pulls back his right arm, that's holding the gold for a finishing punch, Rose chuckles at what's coming next.

Nami looks at her in confusion as she sees her watching the fight with excitement in her eyes. "What's so funny?"

"The gold on Luffy's arm is a strong conductor."

Nami is taken aback by the explanation as she watches Luffy winding back the golden covered arm, and realizes that the electric man accidentally gave Luffy a weapon to take him down.

However, he's not the only one with a weapon for Eneru managed to manipulate the golden face to forge himself two tridents for each hand while Luffy kicks him. Just when Luffy's about to throw the punch, he stops when his shoulder is stabbed with one of the tridents.

He pulls his arm free of the trident, but at the cost of him falling so fast that he goes past the girls without even a blink.

The two girls rush to the edge of the cloud and before either of them can do anything a rubber hand grabs the edge of the cloud.

They look down to see Luffy still winding up his right arm for the punch as he glares at the ship above them. "Get out of the way!"

Rose immediately does as she's told as she grabs Nami by the arm and pulls her away from the edge with her as Luffy slingshots himself back up.

Eneru glares at the rubber boy coming at him as he gets his weapons ready. "I'll skewer you this time!"

"No way you big eared freak! Gum gum-!" Luffy throws his arm forward and before Eneru could even react to the fast move, his fist along with golden sphere. "GOLD PISTOL!"

The attack immediately knocks out the fake god, but it doesn't stop there. The punch takes both his enemy and the giant orb off the ship and to the golden bell to hit it so hard that the gold on Luffy's arm breaks off. Once the attacks hit the bell, it finally moves so that it can ring its beautiful sound through the air for the first time in centuries.

As the bell plays its song, it falls off the cloud and towards the ground below with Luffy, the ship, and Eneru following.

While Rose gives her captain a soft landing on their cloud, she keeps her eyes on her kidnapper to make sure that he falls into the white waters with his ship, so that he will leave to his final destination. _*I'm never going to the moon_ _in this world...*_

Nami doesn't notice her tension as she continues to listen to the bell's loud, yet beautiful, song. "This is amazing."

"You think this sound will reach the blue sea?" Luffy asks as he sits down.

Rose gives him a small grin as her tension fades away with each beautiful ring of the bell. "No doubt about it."

Nami gives Luffy back his hat before she looks down at the long way down from their cloud and grabs her waver. "Let's get back down."

Rose nods in agreement, but before she can move, Luffy gets up and wraps an arm around both girls. "Let's go!"

As he jumps off the cloud with his crew mates, Nami screams in fright of the fall.

Rose however, happily laughs from the adrenaline of the fall, but she has a feeling that her ordeal isn't over yet. Not just because Nami overheard Eneru saying that Rose's mantra is different, but because there's a high chance that Robin heard him as well.

Until the questions are asked though, she's going to allow herself to enjoy every moment she has left on Sky Island.

TO BE CONTINUED

* * *

 **A/N: Hi everyone, sorry to keep you waiting, but I had a busy month of editing old chapters and surviving the real world. I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it.**

 **To the guest who warned me about my story being published on Quotev, you don't need to worry, I'm the one who put it up. A friend of mine suggested that I should put the story up there and I didn't see why not. I want to thank you though for showing me that there are still good people out there, at least in the virtual world.**

 **I believe that's it on my announcements so until next time fellow One Piece fans. ;)**


	32. Chapter 32

As soon as Nami, Luffy, and Rose get close enough to the ground, Luffy inflates his stomach until it's the size of a ball with both girls by his side. When he hits the ground, he bounces in the air and laughs with Rose for the fun way to land while Nami is still shaken from falling at such a height.

Luffy lands on his feet and let's go of his crew mates while he's still laughing. "Shishishi, that was great! Hey, which way-?"

Nami cuts him off by punching him on top of the head. "GIVE US A WARNING WHEN YOU DO THAT!"

The captain groans as he rubs the lump on his aching head. "My bad…"

Rose chuckles at the spat as she pats Nami on the shoulder. "Relax, at least we didn't get hurt. Let's get back to the others."

Nami sweat drops at her calmness, but she lets it go as she looks to the direction of the plaza. "Fine, but you're still getting fined."

Rose flinches at the reminder of Nami's threat to fine her if she lost to Eneru again. "You were serious?!"

"I'm always serious when it comes to money." Nami says with a sly grin as she and Luffy start heading to the plaza with Rose begrudgingly following. As soon as they arrive, they were met with a sight of an energetic Chopper treating Zoro and Sanji's injuries.

"Chopper, you're ok!"

The reindeer freezes at Nami's voice as he and the others grin at the arrivals.

"Nami-swan~! Rose-chwan~!" Sanji gets up and twirls to the girls. "I'm so glad you're alright!"

"Glad you're ok too Sanji." Nami says as she goes to relax with Robin.

Rose only nods when Chopper approaches both her and Luffy, since they're the most injured out of the three of them. "You two, come with me!"

The pair complies to the doctor's demands while Nami suddenly gets hugged by Conis. "I'm so glad you guys are ok!"

Nami blinks at the sudden hug, but she doesn't hesitate to hug her back and sees the sky island girl's father watching the touching moment. "You both made it here ok?"

Pagaya nods as he looks around. "Yes, we were lucky to escape Angel Island. All the citizens managed to leave the island before it was destroyed, and they're making their way back onto god's land."

As Rose takes off her jacket to assess her damage, she looks over to Wiper, who's sleeping with bandages all over his injuries, but Aisa nods to Pagaya's plan.

She turns her attention back to Chopper, who's working on Luffy's injuries, she softly grins at the chance for the Shandorians to live in peace with the Skypieans before she starts getting the feeling that someone's staring at her.

She looks from the corner of her eye to see that Aisa is staring at her, but not with as much hostility as there used to be.

Robin notices the look that the child is giving the wind girl and looks at her in confusion. "Is everything alright?"

Aisa looks at her for a moment before she nods. "Yea, I'm just practicing my mantra."

Rose tenses up at the reminder, as Chopper finishes with Luffy and works on her injuries.

The archaeologist doesn't notice her reaction as she looks at the kid curiously. "Oh? You have the ability as well?"

Aisa nods as she looks around at everyone in the town square. "Yea, besides the people here, I can hear more voices coming onto the island. Still, none of them sound like-"

"Hey Aisa, wanna explore the city?"

She and the others turn to Nami's voice to see her grinning at the little Shandorian girl.

Aisa eagerly nods to the idea as she runs over to her.

Before the pair leaves, Luffy gets up and joins them. "I wanna go too!"

"I'll come along to protect you Nami!" Sanji says as he joins them.

Nami quickly nods as she takes them with her before any more questions can be asked.

"What was that about?" Usopp asks, but he only receives a shrug from Zoro.

"If it keeps the love cook from annoying us then I don't care." The swordsman takes a nap in the plaza while the others just brush off the sudden departure.

Rose however, is surprised about Nami's interruption. She doesn't know why she did that, but she's still grateful that she stopped the child from talking about her aura. She snaps out of her daze when she flinches from Chopper applying ointment on her arms' fading burns from her fight with Shura and the scratches from when she roughly rubbed off the sea stone are.

"Sorry." The reindeer says as he reapplies new bandages on the arms to allow them to heal. "Your arms should look like new by tomorrow."

Rose nods with a grin. "Thanks doc, you're the best."

"You dummy, I didn't heal you, so you could thank me!" He happily laughs as he goes to Wiper to check on his injuries.

Rose chuckles at the cute reindeer's antics as she puts on her jacket and backpack.

Robin tilts her head at the wind girl when she sees her getting up. "Where are you going?"

"I'm gonna do my own exploring."

Robin grins at the idea as she gets up. "Would it be alright if I go with you Wind-chan?"

Rose has a bad feeling about this, but nonetheless she nods her head so that she doesn't look suspicious. "Sure, let's go."

As soon as the girls were out of earshot from the plaza, Rose grins at the archaeologist. "So, what parts of the city have you seen?"

"I've seen some interesting ruins; would you mind if we go there first?"

Rose quickly shakes her head. "Not at all, let's go."

Robin nods as she follows the archaeologist out of the city, back onto the Upper Yard, and to a group of ancient landmarks. As Robin takes the time to examine the ruins, Rose digs into her backpack for her camera. "'Mind if I take a picture of them?"

Robin nods in agreement as she steps away. "Please."

The wind girl takes a few shots until it stops clicking. She blinks at her equipment and sighs in disappointment. "Looks like I'm out of film."

Robin raises an eyebrow at the news. "You took that many pictures?"

She casually shrugs at her. "There's too much to see for just your eyes. I mean, who else can say that they explored a sky island?"

Robin giggles at the question. "Too true, everything from gods to mantra is all new for me." She looks to see that Rose barely reacted to the word 'mantra' and gets to the point. "Why exactly did Eneru call you 'little goddess'?"

Rose groans at the annoying nickname as she puts her camera away. "Your guess is as good as mine for what that sociopath is thinking. He probably just thought we were the same because we're logia users."

"But what about your mantra being different?"

Rose freezes at the question, before she quietly sighs. "You overheard him talking huh?"

She nods as she keeps snooping. "Even the little girl in the plaza seemed to sense something."

The brunette tightens her hold on her backpack before she looks away. "I don't have any mantra abilities, so I can't tell you what they sense. Devil fruits could affect mantras for all we know."

Robin raises an eyebrow at the dodged answer. "Didn't seem like you didn't know why from your reaction to Eneru's comments."

Rose scowls at the reminder of what he said to her before he kidnapped her. "Hard to be curious about it when an electric man is trying to kill me. I was pretty pissed about his cocky attitude though."

She looks her nosy crew mate in the eye to try to shoot down her suspicions. "You can think about it as much as you want, but I can't tell you anything that would make sense. If mantra is anything like a person's soul, then everyone's could be a little different for all we know."

Robin furrows her eyebrows at the comparison and ponders on the possibility of it as she crosses her arms over her chest. "You might be right, it can't be possible for every mantra to be exactly the same. Since logia users are rare, it could be that your abilities really did mix with your mantra."

Rose grins in relief that she's satisfied her curiosity, at least for now, and looks around. "Yea, but reading mantra like that sounds like a cool ability. Hey, while we're here do you want to check out the rest of the city ruins?"

Robin opens her mouth, to answer, but a masculine voice rings through the air instead.

"It's you!" The girls look to see the handsome, young, man, that Rose saved from Eneru's judgement before they got sent to the trials, running to them with a large smile. "I can't believe you escaped Eneru! It's great to see you!"

Rose grins at the interruption as she casually waves at him. "Good to see you survived too Eddy."

"You know him?" Robin asks.

Rose nods as she points to him. "Yea, this is Eddy. When Nami and I were exploring Upper Yard, we helped him escape the priests." She turns to the former pirate with a grin. "This is Robin, she's one of my crew mates."

Eddy nods as he smiles at Robin. "Nice to meet you. What are you guys doing out here?"

"We're examining the ruins and photographing them." Robin says as she looks to the ruins.

"What about you?" Rose asks.

Eddy's face fell from the question as he runs a hand through his scruffy, dark blond, hair. "I was looking to see if my crew's old ship was still here, but it looks like the priests destroyed it…"

Rose softly frowns at the survivor for she feels his pain in about to lose a ship. "I'm sorry…"

Eddy quickly shakes his head as he puts on a reassuring smile. "Don't be, it wasn't your fault! I'm going to be working under a dial salesman so I'm going to start my life over."

He freezes when he comes up with an idea and brightly smiles at the girls. "Hey, you guys are going back to the blue sea soon, right?! My boss and I brought a ton of dials to set up shop here, if you come with me, I can give you a discount!"

Rose freezes at the generous offer before she shakes her head. "I appreciate it, but-"

"Please, I really want to repay you for your kindness." Eddy interrupts her with a pleading look in his brown eyes.

Rose looks unsure if she should when Robin pats her on the shoulder. "It can't hurt to take his gratitude Wind-chan. Go on ahead, and we can catch up later."

Rose blinks at Robin's retreat as she watches her go off on her own. She quietly sighs, but with the opportunity to get some dials for future plans, she looks to the tan man and nods. "Alright, let's go."

Eddy brightens up at her accepting his invitation as he leads her to where the other Angel Island civilians are docked.

* * *

After Nami, Conis, Luffy, Aisa, and Sanji have explored the Shandorian city, they wandered out of the city until they found themselves at the coastline where dozens, if not hundreds are docked.

"So, both the Shandorians and Skypieans are really staying here together?" Sanji asks as he eyes a few tribesmen helping a group of children to get on the island.

Conis nods as she grins at the sight. "That's right, since Eneru destroyed Angel Island. With the Shandorian leader's permission, we're able to come here."

Aisa grins at how there will be no more fighting, when she senses the strange mantra nearby. She looks around the various boats and stops when she sees a big boat, that looks like a travelling dial shop in the distance.

When she sees the brunette happily chatting, out of earshot, with a young, blond, man as they test out the various dials, she tilts her head in confusion. "Is he a friend of yours?"

The others follow her gaze in confusion before they see Rose talking with Eddy.

Nami immediately recognizes the stranger and is surprised that he made it here too. "That's Eddy, Rose saved him from Eneru's lightning when we explored the Upper Yard."

"Let's see if we can get some dials." Luffy says as he runs ahead.

Meanwhile, Rose picks up a tone dial and listens to the recording she just made. "Fuck the World Government~!"

Eddy and Rose chuckle at the recording as the wind girl puts the tone dial in her backpack, where she already stored a few other shell-like devices.

Eddy looks around the collection to see if there's anything else she could use. "Anything else I can get you?"

She shakes her head with a smile as she closes her bag up and digs up a pile of beli from the bag's outer pocket. "I think I got what I need. Thank you for these, and thank you for developing my pictures for me."

He nods with a grin as he takes the money. "Don't worry about it. When will your crew be heading back?"

She casually shrugs as she looks up at the sky to see that the sun's going to set soon. "Probably tomorrow. My captain's not the type to stay in one place for too long. I should get back before he looks for me."

She grins at her new friend and extends a hand out for him to shake. "If I don't see you tonight, then take care of yourself."

He softly sighs in disappointment before he shakes her hand. "Yea, you too." He keeps his hand around hers and pulls her into a friendly hug. "Thank you again for saving me. I won't forget it."

Rose's freckled cheeks turn to a light shade of pink from the sudden embrace, but she doesn't hit him because he's just trying to be nice, so she awkwardly pats him on the back. "Y-you're welcome."

What she fails to notice though, is Luffy standing outside of the boat with a scowl from seeing Rose blushing from his hug, and not pulling away like she does with him. A sense of jealousy grows inside of him as he jumps on the boat just when they pull apart.

Before either of them can notice the captain arriving, Luffy picks Rose up over his shoulder with one arm and starts walking off.

Rose's blush immediately increases tenfold when she sees who's carrying her and tries to pull herself off, with hot air flowing off her from her embarrassment, but he won't let her down. "Luffy, what the crap are you doing?!"

"We need to get back to the plaza."

Rose freezes at the sudden comment, and mistakes it for Nami needing them, so she stops fighting him as her mood breeze fades away. With her cheeks still rivaling the redness in Luffy's shirt, she sheepishly waves Eddy goodbye, as he watches them leave in a stupor. "Sorry for the crazy goodbye, good luck with everything Eddy."

Luffy grows more irritated at the goodbye as he carries her deeper into the island a little faster than before.

As all this is happening, Nami's group can only watch in shock until the redhead starts laughing.

"W-what just happened?" Eddy asks as he turns to Nami and her friends.

Nami settles down to giggles as she boards the boat. "Don't worry about it. Our captain's always like that around her."

"I just wish he'd treat her like a lady." Sanji says as he takes in a smoke from his cigarette before he follows Nami onboard.

"What kind of dials do you have?" Aisa asks him as she and Conis climb on.

Eddy can only blink at the carefree attitude of his new customers before he gets back to doing business. "I-I'll show you our inventory right now."

* * *

As Luffy treks through the woods to get back to the plaza, Rose begins to struggle to get off Luffy's shoulder again, but he won't let go. "My legs aren't broken Luffy, so put me down!"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Don't wanna."

She groans at his attitude as her cheeks refuse to get rid of their blush. "What are you so upset about?"

"I don't know."

She blinks at him admitting that he's upset, and hums in thought of what she can do to cheer him up. When she gets an idea, she brightly smiles at him. "If you put me down, then I'll show you something cool."

Luffy freezes at the offer just as they reach a clearing, and silently agrees as he sets her down.

As Rose's face clears up, she gives him her best showman's smile as she digs into her backpack, and grabs a white seashell with pink specs scattered around it. "Now watch and be amazed my friend! For thanks to this milky dial, I now have the ability to summon the clouds!"

As soon as she activates the dial, large clouds of white begin to fly out of the shell. She smirks at her surprised audience as she uses her wind to shape the cloud into a slanted version of the crew's jolly roger.

"Whoa, that's so cool!" Luffy says with stars in his eyes.

Rose grins in satisfaction as she manipulates the clouds in a few other shapes. After the fourth shape, she decides to kick it up a notch by manipulating the white mist to envelope the clearing in a smokescreen.

Luffy jumps back in shock when the cloud hits him, but besides feeling a cool mist, nothing bad happens to him. All he could see is white in the slightly humid air as he looks around for his crew mate. "Where'd you go?"

"Over here!" He turns to the voice at his right as he follows it until his face hits a floating shell.

Once he makes contact with the grey shell, it lands in his hands for him to look at curiously. "This looks like that tone dial Conis showed us. How did it work again?"

He pushes on the top of the shell, which makes Rose's recording start playing. "Welcome to my version of hide and seek, which I'd like to call 'find the ninja in the mist!' If you don't want to play, then speak now or forever hold your peace!"

Luffy blinks at the invitation for a game before he calls out to her. "I want to play!"

As if on clockwork, the recording continues. "Good to know you still want in. The rules are simple: if you find me before the clouds clear then you win. If the clouds clear up before you caught me then I'm the victor. I won't be using my powers, except to retrieve this dial, so you don't need to worry about me cheating. With that, let the games begin!"

The shell starts floating in a gust of wind, out of Luffy's hands, and into a random direction. "Hey!"

He follows the flying shell, but he completely loses it in the clouds. He manages to sometimes see a blue coat, or brown hair, but before he can catch her, she manages to get out of his grasp. "I'm not giving up!"

As he stretches his arms in random directions to try to find her, Rose suppresses a chuckle as she stands just a few feet behind him. As he turns around, she follows him so that she's always behind him the whole time. However, when she sees that the clouds are beginning to fade, she starts to go to a thicker part of the mist.

Before she could get far though, a pair of rubber arms wraps around her waist from behind and pulls her backwards.

As soon as her back hits Luffy's chest, her face lights up in a light shade of red while Luffy laughs. "Shishishi, looks like I win."

Rose sheepishly nods as the clouds fade away, so she pulls away and chuckles. "Yup, congrats."

Luffy looks to see that her freckled cheeks went red again and gets a closer look at her. "Why does your face keep turning red?"

Rose freezes at the question as she shifts her eyes everywhere. "I-I don't know what you're talking about…"

He ignores the terrible lie as he puts a hand to her forehead.

Rose raises an eyebrow at the action when she sees him scowling. "Umm Luffy, what are you-? Ah!"

She yelps in shock as Luffy picks her up over his shoulder again and runs to the direction of the plaza. "Why the hell didn't you tell me that you were sick?! I'm taking you to Chopper right now!"

Rose's face couldn't get any redder from the oblivious captain's assumption as she struggles in his hold. "Wait, I'm not sick dammit!"

"Then why does your face keep getting red?!"

"Because of affection!"

He immediately stops in his tracks at the sudden confession and puts her down right in front of him. "What do you mean?"

She shifts her eyes away from him as she scratches the back of her head. "I don't know how to fucking explain it right. Can't we just leave it alone?"

He gets ready to pick her up again, so she hastily steps back. "Ok, ok, umm... When guys around my age hug me, I get so embarrassed that my cheeks heat up."

Luffy blinks at the explanation and remembers all the times that her face turned red whenever he had his arms around her. As he remembers the different moments, he realizes that he's never felt upset when it was him making her blush, but he kind of liked it.

However, he still doesn't understand why doing that makes her face heat up. "Why would you be embarrassed about hugs?"

She groans at having to explain it to him as she runs her hands through her hair. "I don't know, dammit! Maybe I'm just not used to it! Since I've met you, I've been getting hugged so much that my body doesn't know how to react! It's like I'm allergic to them!"

He tilts his head at the weird explanation. "What does that mean?"

She points to the fading redness on her cheeks. "It means that when I get affection, like hugs and kisses, my face gets like this. It won't kill me, but there's no cure either, so Chopper can't help me."

Luffy widens his eyes at this as he realizes that she'll keep getting like this with not just him, but with other boys too, and wants to find a way to stop that from happening again. "Are you sure there's no way to get rid of your 'alimony'?!"

She giggles at the miswording before she shakes her head. "It's called an 'allergy', and there's no way to get rid of it."

She accidentally mistakes his worry for guilt in making her face red, so she pats him on the shoulder with a small grin. "Look, it doesn't hurt me, so there's no point in worrying about it. Sanji should've finished cooking by now, so how about we go eat?"

He blinks at the reminder of dinner before he happily grins at her. "Yea, let's go!"

Rose chuckles at his excitement as they race off to the plaza just when the party commences between pirate, Shandorian, and Skypiean.

* * *

The sun has long since set, and the party is still thriving with a giant campfire burning strong in the middle of the square.

No one would even think about going to sleep from the fun night as Chopper, Rose, Sanji, Nami, and Usopp are dancing around the fire with the locals.

Luffy is eating as much food that he could get his hands on while Zoro is enjoying the booze.

Robin sits to the side of the dance as she watches the fun with a small grin and enjoys her dinner.

Rose leaves the dancing to take a break as she grabs a mug of water on the side. As she takes a seat and watches the party with a soft grin, she can't help but be glad that the arc is finally done.

She finishes the mug and gets ready to get back in when Aisa walks up to her.

The small child looks at the ground nervously, so Rose looks at her in confusion. "Is there something you need?"

Aisa fidgets her hands before she looks up at her. "Sorry for calling your voice creepy..."

She blinks at the apology about her insulting her aura, before she grins at her as she kneels to her level and extends a hand out to her. "It's water under the bridge. Let's start over. My name's Rose."

Aisa smiles at the introduction as she shakes her hand. "I'm-"

She stops when she looks at the two-colored stone that's hanging around the pirate's neck. "Where did you get that necklace?!"

Rose raises an eyebrow at the question before she looks down at her red and black crystal. "My folks gave it to me, why?"

"I found gems like that here, but they were glowing blue!"

"What?!" She nearly gasps at the chance to further her research as she gently grabs her shoulders and looks her in the eyes. "Do you remember exactly where you saw them?!"

She nods as she looks to the city. "I can lead you to where I found them, but it'll cost you."

Rose doesn't hesitate to get down to business. "What do you want?"

She lightly smirks at her as she holds a hand out for an offering. "I want something from the blue sea."

The astronomer doesn't waste time in getting into her backpack to start looking for something to give her. Sadly, she only has the essentials in her backpack, along with the eternal pose and her envelopes full of pictures, so she has no clue on what to give her.

She furrows her eyebrows in frustration as she looks through the bag, but freezes when she sees the zipper to her hidden pocket, in the bottom of the backpack, that holds her quarter. _*I barely made it through Robin's questions today. Maybe it's better to get rid of this before anything could happen... At least with Aisa, I know she'll treasure it.*_

As she takes out the coin, that managed to come into this world with her, she quickly puts it in her jacket pocket and grins at her. "I have something that I can give you, but we need to go somewhere more private for me to show you."

Aisa silently agrees as she leads them away from the party.

Meanwhile, Luffy finishes his meal and gets a glimpse of the wind girl before she leaves with Aisa. He looks at her in confusion, but instead of following them, he searches for the reindeer in the dancing crowd.

When he finds him, he dances with the reindeer as he talks to him about Rose's blushing problem. "Hey Chopper, I need to talk to you."

Chopper stops dancing and nods as they get out of the dancing circle. "What's the matter?

"How do you get rid of anarchies?"

Chopper gets taken aback by the question and looks at him in utter confusion. "To get rid of what?"

"It's when something happens, and your body reacts weird to it."

The reindeer knits his eyebrows at the weird explanation as he tries to understand what he's saying. When he comes up with an idea of what he's talking about, he looks at him in shock. "Do you mean allergies?!"

"Yea, that!"

The doctor looks at him in horror, because he thinks that it's about someone having a bad reaction to the food, before he looks for anyone having an allergic reaction. "Did something happen?!"

Luffy quickly nods as he points to the direction that Rose went. "Yea, Rose said she's allergic to guys hugging her! How can we stop it?!"

Chopper immediately stops worrying when he sees that it's a false alarm, and blankly stares at him for a moment before he goes back to the party.

Luffy widens his eyes at the abandonment before he calls out to him. "Wait, can't you help?!"

He wasn't given an answer by the reindeer as he watches him go back to the dancing circle.

"You want to help Rose?"

Luffy looks to his right to see Nami smirking at him. "I couldn't help but overhear your problem. I think I know a way for you to treat her 'allergies'."

He blinks at the offer before he eagerly smiles at her. "Really?! What can I do?!"

She wraps her arms around his shoulders and starts whispering the plan to him as the party continues.

* * *

As soon as Rose and Aisa are out of earshot of everyone in the ancient city, the Shandorian stops walking and crosses her arms over her chest. "I won't lead you anywhere else until you pay up."

Rose chuckles at her cheekiness as she inspects herself and the kid to make sure that Robin didn't plant any eyes or ears on them.

Aisa only looks at her in confusion as Rose steps away from her. "What are you doing?"

"Just making sure that no one's snooping." She ignores Aisa's blank stares as she grabs an orange, conical shell shaped, lamp dial from her bag to use as a flashlight, and then digs into her pocket. "Anyway, I have to apologize, I can't give you something from the blue sea. Instead, I have something so rare that you can't find it in neither the white nor blue seas."

The child tilts her head in confusion as Rose places the quarter in her hand and shines the light over the coin, so that they can clearly see it.

As the Shandorian girl examines the two sides of the American coin, she squints her eyes at the bird side of the coin and reads the engraving. "What's 'The United States of America?'"

The wind girl chuckles at the question about her home country as she points to the quarter. "It's a large, corrupt, country that no one can find. That coin is the only thing in the world to prove that it exists."

She raises an eyebrow at the explanation as she looks up at the wind girl. "If it's not in the blue or white sea, then where is it?"

"It's on an ocean that's so polluted that the water could be mistaken as a black sea."

"The black sea…" Aisa looks down at the coin in thought before she looks up at her in shock. "Is that why your mantra is different?! You're from the black sea?!"

Rose chuckles at the accurate assumption as she shrugs. "Whether I am or not doesn't matter now. Just don't tell anyone that I gave that to you, ok?

Aisa nods as she stuffs the coin in her dress pocket. "Ok, this is a good payment, so I'll show you where I found the stones."

Rose happily grins at the child as she uses her lamp dial to light their way to a back street, just a block away from the pyramid. When they see a faint blue light shining from the window of one of the houses, the girls run into the abandoned home.

As they reach the kitchen, they both gape at the beautiful pair of round red and black stones that are about the same size as the stone that's hanging on Rose's necklace, that are resting on the wooden table. The biggest difference between them, is that both of the stones on the table are radiating a light shade of blue light that's illuminating the room.

Rose carefully places her dial on the table, as she carefully eyes the gems and analyzes the new discoveries. _*These must have been here for centuries. Even if they only absorbed the comet's power from the night that the researchers disappeared, it's safe to guess that the astral energy won't fade away on its own. Looks like the only way to get rid of their radiation is to use them for travel...*_

"Whoa, these are amazing…" Aisa says as she reaches a hand for them and snaps Rose from her thoughts.

"Don't touch them!" Rose quickly picks up the gems with a gust of wind to keep them out of her reach.

Aisa blinks at the hasty reaction before she looks at her in confusion. "What's the matter?"

"These crystals are glowing because they took in radiation from a powerful comet. I won't bore you with the details, but if you mess around with these, then you could be spirited away to a faraway place."

The Shandorian flinches at the explanation as she backs away to the wall. "You're serious?! What are you going to do with them?!"

"I'm gonna take them with me for my experiments." She looks around for a container before she spots a small, tan, stone, box that they can fit in. "Can you grab that box for me?"

Aisa nervously nods as she grabs the lightweight box and puts it on the table, next to her dial, and opens the lid.

Rose carefully uses her wind to gently drop the gems into the box and closes the lid. With the blue glow still able to shine through the cracks of the ancient box, Rose goes into her backpack to grab her white handkerchief.

The rag is able barely cover the entire container, after she tightly ties up the ends to create a makeshift sack. However, she's still satisfied because she knows for certain that the jewels can't fall out, but there's still something bothering her. "Are you sure that these are the only ones in the city?"

The child nods as she looks outside. "Those were the only ones I saw when I was exploring with Nami and the others. There would've been news of people disappearing if they messed with them during Eneru's rule."

Rose quietly nods as she puts the mini bag in her backpack, and straps it on while she thinks over the possibility of other crystals being planted in the city. _*Eneru never said anything about my crystal, so maybe he didn't see anything. Noland's explorers could've left these here by mistake or the people who lived here disappeared long before Noland and Calgura's time…*_

She snaps out of her thoughts when she sees Aisa staring at her timidly, so she gives her a calm smile as she grabs her lamp dial. "I don't think there's anything to worry about. It's possible that these two are the only ones in the city. How about I take you back to the party before the others notice that we're gone?"

The child quickly nods as she and Rose get out of the building.

As the two of them walk back to the square, Rose keeps track of her surroundings so that she can come back to investigate later.

Once they return to the campfire, Aisa runs off to go dance with Chopper and the others.

Rose couldn't hide the smile from the step closer to her research as she puts the dial in her bag, and goes to grab something to eat.

"Rose!" She freezes and turns to see Luffy running to her. "I know how to help!"

She raises an eyebrow at the announcement. "What do you-?"

Luffy pulls her into his embrace with a toothy grin. "Nami said that to fix your allergy, you need to be hugged every day to get used to it."

Rose's face immediately heats up at the idea. "Wait, what?!"

Luffy only nods as he keeps his arms around her "Yup, so until you're cured, I'll give you a hug once a day."

She quickly pulls away and shakes her head. "You don't need to do that!"

"But I want to!"

Her heart unexpectedly speeds up a little from the honest answer, but she quickly denies that it's about him wanting to give her affection. _*He means that he wants to help me.*_

She quietly sighs as she runs a hand through her bangs. "Luffy-"

"Do you want to keep getting embarrassed from hugs?"

She freezes at the question and looks to see that he's serious about this. She groans in frustration as she looks away from him. "Of course not..."

"Then can we at least try?"

She thinks it over then benefits of not being embarrassed from hugs anymore, and sighs in defeat when she sees no way to get him to change his mind. "Fine, but if it's not any better after a few weeks then we're pulling the plug on this."

"Deal!" He happily grins at the agreement, and hugs her one more time, before he runs off to dance with the others.

Rose can only watch him go back to the party, as her face gains a scarlet skin tone. _*His hugs might kill me after all…*_

She shakes her head of the thought, as her blush fades off, before she goes to the food table where a happy Nami is sitting alone and enjoying her meal.

When the tipsy navigator notices the tired astronomer narrowing her purple eyes at her, she returns the look with a smirk. "Looks like you had a talk with Luffy. How are your allergies?"

The brunette can only groan as she sits next to her and grabs some random food from the table, without looking at her. "I was just trying to stop Luffy from taking me to Chopper when he thought I was sick. Why'd you tell him that?"

She chuckles at her annoyance as she grabs her mug full of wine and takes a swig. "I think it could work to help you not be so embarrassed. Besides, all that affection could be a good reminder for you."

Rose scowls at the explanation as she takes a bite of her meal. "A reminder of what?"

"That none of us are scared of you."

Rose widens her eyes at what she said and nervously swallows the food in her mouth, before she turns to her friend to see her acting like she didn't say anything. "What?"

The redhead only takes a swig of her booze again before she takes a cupcake from the pile and puts it in front of her. "So what if some psycho bastard says that your mantra's weird?! It's not like you're anything like him! You're too clumsy with your powers for us to be scared of you!"

Rose can only blink at her as she processes the compliment, or was that an insult? Regardless, she can't help but chuckle at Nami's drunken rant. "I think that booze has messed with your brain."

She only shrugs off her comment as she finds the blond chef dancing around. "Whatever you say. Just know that I was only scared of Eneru during the fight in the square."

Rose can only stay quiet as she watches the navigator stumbles back to the fray and grabs Sanji to get him to dance with her.

The brunette shakes her head at Nami's rambling and eats the cupcake she gave her. However, she can't stop herself from thinking back on the conversation with Nami. Even though it was clear that the navigator was drunk when she was talking to her, Rose can tell that she wasn't lying about not being afraid of her.

She softly grins at the reassurance that she's not being feared yet, before she finishes her meal, and slips away from the festivities to investigate the house.

* * *

As soon as Rose returned to the house, she searched every corner of the ancient building for clues. However, all she could find was everything, but crystals and journals that could tell her more about their origination.

She takes a seat in the kitchen to take a break, and notices that there's not a spec of gold in this house, so she assumes that the place was pilfered by the false god. "Maybe Eneru's men only focused on the gold… If they touched the crystals, then they could've disappeared before they could report it though…"

She groans at many possibilities that could've happened, but she knows that there's no use whining about it, so she leaves to go search the rest of the city.

Once she goes outside, where the sun is starting to rise, she stops when a familiar voice calls to her. "What are you doing here Wind-chan?"

Rose flinches at the nickname and looks to see Robin approaching her with a curious look on her face.

The wind girl quietly sighs as she rubs her tired eyes. "Just exploring the city."

She freezes when she realizes that Robin could help her to see if there are any more crystals hidden in the city. As long as she keeps quiet about her research it shouldn't hurt, so she gives it a shot. "Actually, you came at a good time."

Robin raises an eyebrow at the comment when Rose shows her the red and black crystal, that's hanging on the silver chain around her neck. "Would you be willing to grow a bunch of eyes around the city, to see if any crystals like these are here?"

The archaeologist blinks at the request as she gets a closer look at the gem. "What kind of stone is this?"

"That's what I've been trying to figure out. I found some gems like this in the city, but I couldn't figure out if they came from Jaya or somewhere else."

"Why do you want to know?"

She freezes at the question as she thinks some way to avoid mentioning anything about the Timore comet.

There's only one honest reason that she can give her that doesn't reveal her research, so she sadly looks down at her necklace as she explains herself. "The one I'm wearing was my mom's. Since this is all that I have left of her I want to know more about it, just to feel a little closer to her, you know?"

Robin widens her eyes as the sappy story, as she remembers how one of the reasons she's doing her own research is for her mother.

Rose however, doesn't notice the sentimental look Robin is making as she gives her a smile to show that she's fine. "Sorry about that, I didn't mean to make it sound sad. I can search on my own if you're busy."

She turns around to leave, but stops when Robin places a hand on her shoulder. "It wasn't that sad Wind-chan, I can help."

Rose happily smiles at her crew mate as Robin closes her eyes.

"Ojos Fleur." Robin focuses to sprout blue eyes all over the ancient city, in hopes of finding any more crystals. However, as far as she searched from the top of the pyramids, to the inside of the various buildings, there was no trace of the gems anywhere.

She was only able to keep the eyes present for half a minute before she has to cancel them out. She frowns in disappointment before she looks at Rose. "Sorry, I couldn't find anything."

Rose nods in understanding with a small grin. "That's fine, thank you for looking. Looks like they didn't come from here after-"

She accidentally starts yawning, so Robin giggles at her exhaustion. "You were out here all night, weren't you? You should head back, I'm sure the others will be getting up soon."

The wind girl reluctantly nods as she heads to the direction of the plaza. "Yea, that sounds good, I'll see you back at the ship."

Robin nods as she waves her off and then goes off in her own search for the poneglyph.

As Rose heads back to the square, she can't help but be glad that she's not accidentally leaving behind any crystals, so no one would disappear by accident. _*At least that's one less thing to worry about. I should go to the ship to update the journal, and-*_

She accidentally yawns again, just as she reaches the plaza. When she sees her crew and the locals sleeping without a care in the world, she's compelled to join them so that she can study the crystals with a clear mind.

As she finds an empty spot on the ground near her friends, she uses her backpack as a pillow, and allows herself a well-earned rest with exciting thoughts on what she can learn with her new test subjects.

TO BE CONTINUED

* * *

 **A/N: Hey guys, I hope you enjoyed this new chapter. It looks like I'm finally out of my funk now that Skypiea is done! :D**

 **I would like to announce that the next chapter will be a filler for what happened in New York after my favorite wind girl disappeared. If you guys don't want to read it, then I suggest waiting until the following chapter. I'll try my best to make sure that you won't be lost if you skip.**

 **I believe that's it on the announcements so have a SUPER evening!**


	33. Chapter 33

**A/N: Hey guys, as promised here is a filler for what happened in NYC. Again, if you don't want to see then please wait until the next chapter. If you skip this, I'm sure you won't get too lost. If you decide to read it then I hope you enjoy.**

* * *

As morning came for the Sky Island, everyone is up and about with the natives either trading dials for Usopp's blue sea objects or off to search for the golden bell.

Meanwhile, the rest of the pirates, except for Robin, followed Luffy through the city where he told them where he saw a pile of gold. That gold however, is inside the giant, sleeping, python that Eneru attacked, so Zoro stays outside to make sure the snake stays asleep while the others go into the serpent's stomach.

"What has this snake been eating?" Sanji asks as he grabs some treasure.

When he sees Nami struggling to pull a crown out from between the rocks, he puts his findings in his pockets and goes to the beautiful girl. "Let me help."

Nami looks to the chef, and happily smiles at him as she steps back. "Thanks, Sanji."

"Anything for you Nami-san." He struggles with the golden crown, that's fit for a queen, for a moment before he manages to pull it out.

When he sees that it's not covered with stomach acid, he lightly dusts it off before he gently places it on her head. "Lovely."

Nami grins at the compliment and mutters a thank you to him, as she goes off with the crown still on her head. Little did she know, Rose slyly took a picture of Sanji crowning her.

The brunette softly grins at how Sanji is staring at Nami with a sweet smile before he goes off to his own scavenging work. What surprised her though, is that Nami snuck a glance at the chef just after he looked away and then grabbed some loot. _*Now this is interesting.*_

She chuckles at the possible pairing before she grabs her loot, goes to her blanket that's laid out on the flat ruin, and piles as much as she can on there. As she treasure hunts in the serpent, she also searches around for any other two-colored gems. However, the only thing she could find were golden trinkets. _*Looks like I'll only have the samples from last night to work with. This is still pretty awesome! I gotta get started!*_

She grins in excitement of what she can do in her experiments as she puts the last pieces of her findings on her pile, that's almost as big as Chopper. She wraps her blanket around them for a makeshift sack, and ties up the ends before she hauls it over her shoulder. "I'm gonna look for that weapon I stole from Eneru. I'll meet you guys at the ship."

The others wave her off as she gets out through the snake's mouth. Once outside, she sees Zoro doing pushups, regardless of his injuries. "Hey Zoro, do you know what happened to the two-pronged spear that fell with the leaf yesterday?"

He stops for a moment before he points to his right. "I think I saw it over there."

Rose nods as she looks to the opposite direction, where she can see a part of the fallen beanstalk. "That way then, thanks."

He groans at her comment as he watches her starting to create wind for both herself and the gold. "You're not seriously keeping that weird spear, are you?"

"Of course not, I'm gonna pawn it off for a new sword." When she starts floating, she turns to him with a small grin. "In the meantime, is there a chance that I can borrow one of your swords for training?"

He smirks at the question as he goes back to his pushups. "Hell no, you gotta use your own weapons to train."

She blinks at the challenge before she returns the smirk. "I see how it is. Alright then smartass, I'm gonna use that spear to fight you!"

He chuckles at her confidence as he goes back to his own training, while she flies off.

As Rose heads to the beanstalk, she can't stop thinking about what she can do with her two samples. There are so many things that she can try with only two gems, that it's hard to know where to begin. _*I don't know enough to try a round trip. Besides, if Luffy found out he would want the whole crew to come even with no sure way to get back.*_

She chuckles at imagining everyone's mixed reactions of shocked, scared and excited for if Luffy announced that they're going on an other-worldly adventure. "Maybe someday..."

She shakes her head at the hopeful possibility of the crew travelling the worlds together, as she reaches the base of the beanstalk, and finds the two-pronged spear lying on the ground.

As she lands on the ground and grabs the golden weapon, she can't help but think of how even if she's confident enough to pull off a round trip, she wouldn't try going back to New York. With that in mind, she comes to a decision on what her first official experiment will be. _*I wonder how everyone in that city is doing...*_

She quietly sighs to herself as she flies to the ship with her loot, and mentally prepares for the experiment with thoughts of the friends that she left behind.

* * *

Just after the Timore comet flew past New York City, news reports and eye witnesses of the beautiful comet was all that everyone's been talking about. However, it only took a week for the news reports and gossip to die down, and start to be forgotten by most. All except for the owners of a small pizza restaurant that a missing girl used to work at.

A poster with Rose's picture on it, that has a message below it that says, 'Have you seen me?', is taped on the glass window in hopes for anyone to give the owners some news, but with no luck.

Timothy sadly sighs to himself as he wipes the counter in the empty restaurant and adjusts his glasses as he looks at the window, where another picture of her is taped on the window to the inside the restaurant. "Did you really do it? You said you didn't figure out how to leave yet..."

He's only met with silence as his mother walks out of the kitchen with a small bin of grated cheese in her hands. When the middle-aged woman sees what her son is staring at, she softly glances at the photo before she puts on a brave face and puts the cheese in the toppings section of the counter. "If you're going to just stare at the picture, then I'll take it down."

The slightly chubby boy snaps out of it from the comment and narrows his brown eyes at her. "How can you say that?! Aren't you worried at all?! She could be getting chased down by titans for all we know!"

Naomi rolls her eyes at his claim as she looks to see what other toppings they need out front. "For the last time, she didn't disappear to another world. She just ran away."

He grows irritated at her denial as he points to the picture. "You know the timing's too perfect for it to be anything but disappearing! And she has no reason to run away from her family!"

 _*If only you knew…*_ She bites back her desire to tell him about Rose's abuse from her foster family, to make sure he doesn't kill them, and heads back to the kitchen. "Think what you want, but we've had employees run away before, and this isn't different. I'm giving those pictures one more week before they go down, are we clear?"

"Crystal…" He pouts to his mother's coldness as he gets back to work while Naomi goes back to the kitchen.

The skinny woman only looks ahead as she zips through the kitchen and goes into the back office. Once she shuts the door behind her, she goes to the computer on her desk. She grits her teeth as she searches through her desktop files until she finds one that's titled 'Rose's conversations'.

Ever since she learned of Rose's foster family, she's made sure to speak to the teenage girl about the abuse where the security cameras can record them. That way, when she was no longer in the foster care system, she could get her justice. But now that she's gone, no matter what the reason, Naomi has no reason to keep this a secret.

She goes into her drawer for a flash drive and digs through the clutter, but instead of finding a drive, she found a plastic bag with six memory chips from cameras.

She blinks at the bag as she takes a closer look at the dusty old memory cards and remembers that Rose was the one who gave them to her. Just after she finally gave them her application.

* * *

 _"The Timore comet?" Naomi asks, unsure if she heard her employee right, as Rose stands in front of her and her son in the kitchen._

 _Rose nods as she shows them pictures of a blue comet that she got from the internet. "Yea, it's what I'm researching. It has the ability to travel to other worlds."_

 _Both Timothy and Naomi just stare at her like she has two heads, so she furrows her eyebrows at them. "Alright, I'll get the questions out of the way right now. I'm not part of some cult, I haven't seen it yet, and-"_

 _She stops continuing the list of assumptions, that her peers taunted her with about her belief in the comet's power, when she was about to say that her parents actually died, instead of abandoning her to go to another world._

 _She shakes her head of the memory of the insults, and looks away from them. "Look, I'm researching it to get out of this world, so if I stop coming back then I succeeded. I just wanted to give you that fair warning before I give you my application."_

 _Timothy adjusts his glasses to get a better view of the picture as he remembers the soda incident, that happened a month ago. "So that's why those bitches called you a comet- Ow!"_

 _Naomi cuts him off by slapping him upside the head. "Language!"_

 _Rose chuckles at the family spat as she grabs her application from her backpack. "Yea, those assholes don't believe that I can actually do it, but- Hey!"_

 _She's cut off when Naomi smacks her too. "What is with you kids and cursing?!"_

 _The teenage girl rubs the sore spot on her head but keeps on a small smile from being scolded. "I blame social media!"_

 _"I blame MTV!" Timothy calls out with Naomi smacking both of their heads._

 _"I blame your stupidity..." Naomi groans out with the two kids chuckling at her irritation._

 _Timothy quiets down as he looks at Rose in confusion. "So, this comet can really travel to other worlds? How did you get into this?"_

 _Rose blinks at the question, for this is the first time that someone has been genuinely curious about her research, instead of just playing it off as her lying. Nonetheless, she tries not to expect too much in case he insults it. "My parents are astronomy professors, they're the ones who started it. We're all working to figure out its secrets so that we can explore the universes."_

 _She studies his movements carefully, but instead of seeing disbelief or ridicule, she sees him starting to grin in excitement. "That's awesome! You gotta go to the One Piece world first! That's where I'd go if I could choose!"_

 _She slightly widens her eyes at how he easily believes her, but she hides her shock behind a happy grin. "You know, with what I've looked into so far, I think I would choose that one too."_

 _He grins at her, but before he could say anything, he looks at the wall clock to see that it's almost 11:30. "Oh shit, it's time to open!"_

 _He runs out of the room while he ignores Naomi's scolding for his cursing._

 _The redheaded woman groans at the kids' antics as she turns to Rose. "Your parents are really studying this thing?"_

 _Rose freezes when she sees the same look of doubt on her boss' face that she receives from everyone else, so she softly sighs as she gives her the form. "Yea, but I'm not asking you to believe us. I just don't want to feel guilty for disappearing on you guys."_

 _The taller woman blinks at the dismissal as she reads the form, that holds only her information from when her birth parents were alive. "I honestly don't believe you, but it's not like I can stop you. I'll keep this in mind when you stop coming back."_

 _The freckled teen accepts the indifference, for it's better than ridicule, and goes into her bag. "There's also one more thing."_

 _Naomi hums in confusion as she takes out a plastic bag with camera memory chips in them. "If I give these to you, can you promise not to look in them?"_

 _She blinks her brown eyes at the bag before she looks at her suspiciously. "What's in the chips?"_

 _"Videos, I'm not sure how long I'll be staying in this world, so I made a few…" She eyes the cards for the right description for them before she looks up at Naomi. "Tribute videos for everyone who's been in my life, including you guys. I want to surprise you all after I turn eighteen, but I don't want them to get discovered by the others."_

 _The older woman raises an eyebrow at the idea, but she doesn't see why not as she takes them from her. "Fine but promise not to go too deep in talking about this comet. I don't want Timothy trying to go with you."_

 _The brunette frowns at the command before she turns away from her. "Trust me, I don't want to drag anyone else into this…"_

 _She walks off to get to work at the front of the restaurant without another word._

 _Naomi quietly sighs at the girl's retreat as she looks down at the application and memory cards in her hands. "Who did I let into our lives?"_

* * *

Naomi sadly stares at the bag before she abandons her search for a flash drive and instead grabs a memory card reader. Once everything's set up, she takes out one of the memory cards and puts it in the reader.

The only thing she sees in the file is one video. As soon as she opens it, she raises an eyebrow at the screen showing a dimly lit supply closet.

"Is this freaking working?"

Naomi widens her eyes at the familiar voice, but it sounds younger than she remembers it. The focus shifts all around until it finally shows a child version of Rose.

The red headed woman can barely figure out if the skinny child's eleven or twelve from the view, but what's shocking to her is the fresh bruises and scratches on her face, arms, and legs. She can only remain silent as the kid curiously stares down at it. "Man, I hope I figured out the recording feature. Who the hell throws away a perfectly good camera anyway?"

She chuckles at the previous owner's wastefulness as she places the device on a shelf, so that she's facing the camera. "Well, their loss is my gain. I honestly don't know if what I'm about to do will work, but I want to do something to make sure that no one else will be trapped here after I'm gone."

Naomi widens her eyes at the explanation as she listens to the child, who's staring back at her with a determined look on her face. "My name is Rose Catone, and I'm Rick Murphy's foster child. Under sound mind and body, I'm testifying that I'm physically and verbally abused in this foster home."

"Oh my god…" Naomi can't believe what she's hearing as Rose continues her testimony.

"This closet for example, I consider it my second bedroom." Rose picks up the camera to capture the apartment building's supply closet. "You see, half the time after Rick beats me up, I get thrown out of the apartment to fend for myself. I know how dangerous it is for a kid to sleep outside in this city, so I normally go to the roof, but when the weather's bad I sleep in the building's supply closet."

The restaurant owner's rage begins to rise at the new fact as she forces herself to stay seated and see what else her employee left behind in these videos.

Meanwhile, Timothy is tiredly sweeping the floor just when the door slams open. "You know this girl?!"

The nineteen year old freezes at the masculine voice, when he sees a blond, muscular police officer holding the picture of Rose that was outside.

The pale boy squeaks at the cop, that he's heard so much about from Rose, before he happily responds to him. "Oh my god, you really do look like Smoker!"

A tick mark begins to form on the older man's forehead as he sarcastically answers him. "Great, you're another one…"

Timothy giggles at his irritation as he holds a hand to him. "If you mean another anime lover then yes. My name's Timothy, Rose told me all about you."

He scowls at the kid, but nonetheless he shakes his hand. "My name is Robert, not Smoker. Got it?"

The kid nods as he looks to Rose's picture. "So, you started your search huh?"

Robert raises an eyebrow at the question. "What search?"

"For Rose."

This is the first time the cop is hearing this as he puts the picture on the counter. "You're telling me that she's missing?!"

Timothy looks at him in shock before he hastily answers him. "Yea, she disappeared since last week! You didn't notice?!"

Robert widens his eyes at the news, and thinks back on how for the past week he hasn't caught her street performing once. "Do you have her address on file? I can look into this for you."

The brown haired boy nods as he goes to the kitchen. "Yea, it's on her application. Wait here."

The cop complies as he waits in the front while Timothy heads to the office. As the teenage boy opens the door, he pauses when he sees Naomi on the computer.

He knits his eyebrows in confusion as he quietly goes up behind his mother to see what she's watching. The second that he saw what was on the screen though, he had to make sure that he was still wearing his glasses.

Sadly, his eyes weren't fooling him as he watches a video, angled from a high shelf, of a sixteen year old version of his friend being attacked by two teenage, blond, girls, and a big man, with the same tan skin as them, in an apartment living room.

As he watches Rose fighting her abusers, and taking their insults, rage begins to bubble inside of him. He becomes furious not just because of her not telling him about this, but also because it brings back bad memories for him. Memories of how his own father acted towards him when he trained him to fight, until he learned of his sexuality and walked out on him and Naomi, not long before Rose showed up in their lives.

Before he could say anything, the video goes black for a moment before it changes to Rose chuckling to the camera in the supply closet. "To whoever's watching, sorry if last night's fight made you uncomfortable. I knew that one was coming because they found out that I hid a job from them, so I managed to time the recording to capture the proof."

She grins at the memory of the soda incident before she eyes the camera. "I will admit though; the fight was worth it for how they found out. You see these bullies, who are my foster sisters' cronies, found out I worked at a restaurant and tried to blackmail me into a free lunch. When they spilt soda on me on purpose though, my friend Timothy sprayed soda on both of them for revenge."

She laughs at the memory as before she continues with a soft smile. "The owner, Naomi, even stood up to them by showing that she recorded the whole blackmailing. I was sure that I was gonna get fired, but those good people didn't give up on me."

Timothy and Naomi both feel a mix of happy and sad for their friend's kind words as she freezes.

The freckled girl loses her smile, and knits her eyebrows in thought for a moment, as she thinks of telling her audience one of her secrets. "Sorry, I digress, I bet you're all wondering: 'If I made such good friends then why didn't I say anything about my foster family's abuse to them, or even told Bobby or some other cop?' Well first, Timothy and Naomi don't deserve to get dragged into my problems. They've done enough for me. And while I want to have enough evidence for you all to believe me, there is another reason why I didn't say anything…"

She looks to the door to make sure that it's shut before she nervously looks to the camera. "See, after the first few beatings, I was ready to report him to the police. But Rick found out and showed me things online. Terrible things that can happen to foster kids, and makes getting hit look merciful. I don't know who's gonna see this, so I won't say what they were, but I consider myself one of the lucky ones compared to kids on the street."

She stops herself when she feels like she's defending his actions, so she raises her hands defensively. "Now I'm not saying that what he's doing to me is ok. The bastard can't be allowed to take in anymore kids, but he showed me that I'm stuck in a broken system. This government brings orphans to homes that look safe in the public eye, but they could do god knows what to them behind closed doors. I don't want to be one of those kids that get dragged from place to place, where assholes can do whatever they want to me, so I stayed and took the lesser of two evils. Once I turn eighteen and I'm finally free though, I'm gonna make sure that Rick the dick gets his justice!"

She quietly chuckles at the nickname for her foster dad before a yawn accidentally comes out. "Right now though, I need to go to sleep, and trudge through. Good night, whoever you are."

Timothy neither notices, nor cares, about his eyes tearing up from his friend's speech, as he watches her bruised arm reach for the camera and finish the video. "Why the hell didn't she say anything?!"

Naomi jumps off the chair from her son's squeaky complaint and finally notices that he's with her. She sees the tears falling from his eyes and immediately knows that he saw the video, so there's no point in denying it. She sadly goes up to him and pulls the taller boy in her embrace. "She didn't want to risk being sent somewhere worse, I'm sorry you had to learn the truth like this."

He finds her calmness about the situation to be disturbing, for he knows she would be just as mad as he is, so he pulls away from her and weakly glares at her. "Wait, did you know?!"

Naomi looks at him with guilt in her eyes before she sighs. "I knew since last fall when I caught her performing in front of her parents' graves. I wanted to report this too, but she refused and said she'll deny it. I've been making recordings of her talking about it in the restaurant, to get him arrested when she's out of the system, but it looks like she already had this planned."

The pale boy doesn't say anything as he wipes his tears, and goes into the drawer for Rose's application to study the address.

"What are you doing?" Naomi asks, as he hands her the application with a dark scowl on his face.

 **"Finding where my target lives..."**

The restaurant owner shivers at the dark, low tone in his voice, but before he can leave she runs to the door to block him off. "Don't be stupid!"

He glares at her, but refuses to use force on her. "Get out of my way!"

She doesn't back down as she glares back at her son. "No, that doesn't have her real address!"

He freezes at the answer while Naomi explains it to him. "When she gave us that application, she used the information from when her parents were alive! I didn't make her update it because I didn't want you to try going after him!"

The boy's fury grows even higher at the explanation. "Are you serious?! Didn't you care about her at all?!"

The redhead clicks her tongue at his anger as she stands her ground. "Of course I did, but life isn't a manga! If you went after him, it wouldn't have helped her! And even if I reported her abuse, we don't know where she would've end up! There's no point in fighting about who was right or wrong! We need to report this to the police and see if they can find her!"

He stops when he remembers the Smoker lookalike in the front room and begins to evilly smirk at her. "You know, I think you're right. I know just the cop for the job too…"

Naomi raises an eyebrow at his ominous answer as he grabs the application and the bag of memory chips. "Were these her videos?"

Naomi nods, but she keeps her ground in front of the door. "Hold on, what are you planning?"

"Do you remember the cop that kept chasing Rose? We can get his help."

The restaurant owner knits her eyebrows in thought of the cop and freezes. "Wait, we don't even know how to get in touch with this Bobby guy!"

"Don't need to, he's in the front room."

She looks at him in shock before she runs to the front room and finally meets the cop that chased Rose into their lives. "You're Bobby?"

He twitches an eyebrow in irritation before he answers her. "My name is Robert, not Bobby."

She quietly sighs at her employee's antics as she walks up to him. "Sorry, I've only heard of you as Bobby. My name's Naomi, I own this restaurant."

Robert nods in acknowledgment and shows her Rose's photo. "The last time you saw her was a week ago?"

She nods as doesn't notice Timothy walking out of the kitchen. "That's right, she missed three shifts and hasn't called us. We tried calling her, but she gave us a false number…"

Robert widens his eyes at this when Timothy steps up to him and gives him her application and video cards. "We don't know where she is, but we know she's a foster kid. You should find out where she was living in your system. You might want to look in these before you go there."

He raises an eyebrow at the remark as he looks at the offerings in his hands. "What are they?"

"Videos she left behind in case this happened. Just promise that you'll come back here to tell us what you find."

Robert looks to see that he's completely serious about this and turns away from them. "I'll keep you both updated on this case."

The two restaurant workers hum in confusion as he takes a pad from his belt and writes down his contact information. "If either of you find out anything, you can call me."

Naomi hums in agreement as she takes the paper from him and gives him a pamphlet. "We will, our number is on this, so you can call us anytime."

He silently agrees as he takes the pamphlet and walks out to open a new case.

* * *

In the New York Police Station, it's as busy as ever with officers hearing complaints from civilians, or taking in criminals.

Robert however, is holed up in an interrogation room with a laptop and setting up the memory card reader for Rose's videos. Before he could play any of the cards, a bald guy with dark skin, who looks to be the same age as Robert walks into the room.

Robert doesn't notice his scrawny partner's arrival as he walks closer to the computer with papers in his hand. "I got the information on her; do you have it set up?"

The blond officer snaps out of it to the deep-pitched voice and motions him to sit in the chair next to him. "Almost Andrew. What do you have on her?"

Andrew sighs at the question as he plops down next to him and puts Rose's file on the table. "Looks like your street performer friend has been in the system since she was ten. Both her parents were murdered during a break in that wound up with the apartment going up in flames. Luckily, she left on the fire escape before she could get hurt. Ever since then, she's been Rick and Maria Murphy's foster child."

"Shit…" Robert runs a hand through his hair as he processes the information, and remembers the times when he's seen bruises on the kid. Even though he has an inkling about what was going on, he needs to see it with his own eyes before he could get into action. "We'll go visit them after we look at one of these. Her friend was really serious about us looking at them."

Andrew blinks at his partner's priorities, but he agrees as he watches him turn on one of the videos.

The two officers keep their full attention to the video as they find it showing a high-up angle of a video showing Rick attacking a twelve year old girl.

"You stupid brat!" The officers widen their eyes at Rick's anger as they watch him punch Rose in the face.

"What do you think you were doing looking in my files?!"

The little girl narrows her purple eyes at the man as she shows him, and the camera, the paper in her hands. "Seeing how a single man with twins can take on a foster kid! You made it look like your wife's still married to you didn't-?"

He cuts her off to jump back to dodge a slap from him. Rick narrows his eyes on the scrawny brat as he grabs her by the collar of her shirt, and knees her in the gut. "And so what if I did? It's not like she would care for you."

Rose dry hacks from the hard hit, as her foster dad takes the application for his foster license from her, and drags her to the door by her shirt. "You should be grateful you didn't meet that whore. She'd probably sell you on the street instead of just throwing you out. If I catch you snooping through my things again though, then I'll consider doing that too!"

He throws her out the door without another thought and locks her out.

"What the fuck?" Andrew cannot believe what he's hearing, but Robert can barely keep his cool as he gets ready to leave. However, before he could get up, the video goes black for a moment and changes to the kid chuckling to the camera in a supply closet.

The kid doesn't act like she's been hurt at all as she speaks to her audience. "Sorry for the scare in yesterday's fight, but I wanted to see if I can make timed recordings with this camera. When I found out that he forged his ex-wife, Maria's, signature on his foster parent application, I thought it was a perfect opportunity."

She loses her smile as she remembers the application and looks to the door. "Honestly though, I'm disappointed that the cops or even the social workers didn't figure it out. I'm sure they could access divorce papers, can't they?"

Robert twitches an eyebrow at how the people who sent her there could overlook this as Rose continues. "Well, from what I've seen Maria never visits Rick or even her real daughters, so I guess she didn't care."

She shakes her head at the woman's abandonment for her kids as she glares at the camera. "Honestly, people like her shouldn't have kids! At least Rick cares for the twins, but she has no excuse!"

She takes a deep breath through her nose to calm down before she looks to the camera. "Sorry for the rant, speaking of cops though, I think I made friends with one a couple of months ago."

Robert and Andrew freeze at the comment as she grins at her thoughts on the chain smoking cop. "His name's Robert, but I like to call him Bobby. We met when he caught me street performing without a permit. Now this guy's really on the book. He immediately noticed my bruises and literally dragged me to the station, until I stopped him by hitting his leg with my guitar case."

She chuckles at the memory of her first meeting with the policeman. "This guy wouldn't give up though, when I made a run for it, he actually gave chase for I think ten blocks."

She smirks at the screen as she snickers at the fun chase. "Of course, I dodged the man at every turn. Ever since that day, he would chase me around the city whenever we meet. I honestly think it's become a part of his job description."

Andrew chuckles at the child's antics, but Robert's not amused as he narrows his dark eyes on the screen.

Rose quietly sighs at the fun memories as she softly grins at them. "You know though, it's good to see that not every cop is corrupted. He still chases me around, even when I'm a total shithead to him. He could easily let me go and not bother, but I think he really cares for us little guys. If I'm still in this world when I'm eighteen, I'm gonna come clean to him when I persecute Rick. With Bobby taking the case, I'm sure it'll be a fair trial."

Robert widens his eyes at the praise, and couldn't believe that this sentimental kid is really the sassy brat that he's been chasing for the past five years. Even though he knew something was up with her, he honestly didn't want to believe that such a happy looking girl was suffering. If he had caught her just once, maybe he could've changed things.

He tries not to feel too guilty about the situation, as he watches Rose shake her head from her little speech and give them the peace sign. "If I was being mushy, I'm sorry. I just didn't want to end the feed on a bad note. I'll see ya later, whoever you are."

The video ends at that with both policemen being shell shocked at what they just watched.

Andrew swallows a lump in his throat when he voices one of the biggest things that's bothering him. "When she said, 'if I'm still in this world', she didn't mean…"

He starts worrying that she expected to die before she turns eighteen, when Robert bangs the table to snap his partner out of it and gets up. "We're going there right now and cuffing this son of a bitch! We'll drop this off to the DA for a warrant, come on!"

Andrew can barely keep up, as he grabs the file and video chip that they watched, and runs out of the room with his partner.

* * *

It didn't take long for the officers to find the rundown apartment building that's been used as Rose's foster home. As soon as the officers parked the car, they reached the door and rang the doorbell with a small sticker that said 'landlord' under it.

It only took a few minutes before a fat, old, Caucasian man in jeans and a polo shirt opened the door. The mean looking man raises an eyebrow at the policemen as he speaks in a thick Russian accent. "What are you here for?"

The two officers glance at each other for a second before Andrew speaks to him. "We're looking for Rick Murphy, can you tell us which apartment he lives in?"

The old man blinks at the request before he moves out of the doorway to let them in. "So, you're finally here for Zolushka."

Robert raises an eyebrow at the name as he walks in with his partner. "Zolushka?"

The landlord nods as he leads them up the stairs. "Yea, the little orphan who's like that girl. You know with the glass shoe."

They look at him in confusion for a moment before Andrew figures out what the immigrant is saying. "Oh, 'Cinderella'."

The old man nods as he continues his trek up the stairs. "Yea, you're here about her, aren't you?"

Robert nods, but nonetheless he's becoming irritated at how nonchalant he is about it. "Yea, when was the last time you saw her?"

He thinks back with a grin at the times he's enjoyed her performances on the roof, and sometimes tutored her in the guitar. "A few weeks ago, when I watched her play her guitar on the roof, she always goes there after she gets kicked out. Since it's been pretty quiet, she must've ran away. Good for her!"

Andrew widens his eyes at his reminiscing. "Did you know about Rose's abuse?!"

He scoffs in acknowledgement as he looks to the stairs ahead of them. "There's nothing in my building, that I don't know about."

"Then why didn't you say anything?!" Robert asks, with the white-haired man narrowing his blue eyes at him.

"And what would you do if I did, send her somewhere else to get tortured?!" He grunts at them as he stops to take a break from the long trek. "You know nothing of how dangerous it is in your precious country! When you lose your parents, you get thrown in a dog eat dog world! Zolushka knew how badly a child like her could suffer, and stuck it out where she only gets hit!"

The cops couldn't come up with a proper comeback when they reach the door to Rick's apartment.

The landlord roughly knocks on the door until he hears footsteps approaching. "Have fun taking down this piece of shit."

The policemen blink at the happiness in the Russian's voice as they watch him walk back downstairs, just when the door opens.

As soon as Rick opens the door, he widens his eyes at the two cops in front of him, before he nervously grins at them. "Hello there, what can I do for you?"

"Are you Rick Murphy?" Robert asks with the man nodding.

The blond cop holds himself back from pouncing on him, to not blow a chance on finding where Rose could be, as Andrew calmly speaks to him. "We're looking for your foster child, Rose Catone, is she home?"

He blinks at the question before he shakes his head. "Sorry, but she's not here. What kind of nonsense did she get into this time?"

Robert narrows his eyes at the man before him. "You tell us, her job hasn't seen her for the past week."

Rick raises an eyebrow at how her employers could be worried about someone like her, but he shrugs it off. "She must've quit without telling anyone. She's always careless about others."

"And when was the last time you saw her?" Andrew asks as he goes into his pocket for the warrant.

Rick thinks hard on the last time that he saw the freckled girl, but his mind is at a blank. He, Marie, and Laura haven't seen her all week, but they haven't given it a second thought. However, the cops don't need to know that. "I just saw her this morning, she's probably off street performing."

Robert grows completely irritated at the lie. "If that's the case, you should have no problem with us taking you in for questioning."

The foster father widens his blue eyes at them before he steps back. "Hold on, I'm not leaving without a-"

Andrew cuts him off by showing him the legal documents. "We already have a warrant for your arrest, don't make this harder for yourself."

Rick gets taken aback at this as he grabs the door. "Arrested for what?!"

"Negligence, child abuse, forging your ex-wife's signature on your foster parent application, take a pick!" Robert says when the door is about to get slammed in their faces, but Andrew stops the door.

Rick barely cares as he runs to the fire escape. Just when he's about escape from the window though, Robert grabs him by the shoulders, pulls him back inside, and slams his face to the wall.

Rick however, refuses to let himself get arrested as he back kicks his assailant to get him off of him. Andrew goes to grab him, but has to duck to dodge a punch.

Robert avoids the raging man's next kick and punches him square in the face to let him fall to the floor with a nosebleed.

While he's down, Robert pins him on his stomach while Andrew mirandizes him.

Rick barely listens to the man though as he tries to wrestle him off try to get him off. However, Robert overpowers him as he punches him in the head again, and slams him down before he puts a cuff on him.

With the sound of the metal clicking on his wrist, Rick can feel that it's over for him, but he refuses to stop as he futilely struggles in Robert's grasp. "Stop, you can't do this!"

Robert scoffs at the plea as he finally gets the other cuff on from behind his back. "Shut up, you-"

"Dad?"

The three men stop when they see Marie and Laura looking scared at what's happening to their dad.

Robert takes this chance to pull himself and Rick up from the floor. "Who are you two?"

The twins look at each other nervously before Laura answers them. "I'm Laura and this is my sister Marie, what's going on?"

Andrew approaches the pampered looking girls and tries to calmly explain the situation to them. "We're taking your dad into custody to discuss the case on your missing foster sister."

Marie can't believe what she's hearing. "What are you talking about? That stupid bitch isn't missing!"

Robert twitches an eyebrow at the girl's insult as he answers them. "Then where is she?!"

The twins freeze at the question, for they can't give him an answer that can defend their case.

"She's just hiding to get attention!" Laura says but neither cop will hear of it as they take Rick to the door.

"Then he'll be released soon. You girls need to come with us as well." Robert says as he drags the struggling Rick out of the door.

Both eighteen year old girls barely know what to do, except to follow as Andrew ushers them out of the apartment for questioning.

* * *

A month has passed since that day, with Timothy and Naomi living peacefully. They received occasional updates from Robert about the police's search for Rose, but they've found nothing to go by.

What really surprised the restaurant owners though, was the news reports. A few reporters from local news channels have caught wind of how Rose's disappearance happened around the same time as the comet's arrival. Not only that, when they found out that Rose's parents were studying the Timore comet, they've spread the story that she could've completed her family's research, and left this universe through the comet's power.

However, with no proof on this being true, many people have treated this claim as a rumor. Only a few truly believe in the story, such as Timothy has.

The boy right now is currently cleaning up shop when a familiar pair of policemen walk in. He brightens up at the men as he waves at them. "Well if it isn't Andy and Smokey. What can I get you guys?"

Andrew chuckles at the nickname for his partner while Robert twitches an eyebrow.

Nonetheless, the blond officer gave up on correcting him as he approaches the counter. "Just get us the usual. We're taking it to go."

Timothy nods as he gets a slice of sausage and a slice of pepperoni pizza from the display cases and into the oven. Once they're in, he looks to the policemen with eagerness in his brown eyes. "So, what's the news?"

Robert can barely hold back a smirk from the result of Rick's trial, that finished yesterday. "The asshole's guilty, he got a ten-year sentence."

The nineteen year old happily grins at the news as he gets out some paper cups for their sodas. "That's awesome! Did he say anything else about the last time he saw her?"

Andrew sighs in disappointment as he shakes his head. "Sorry kid, all he said was that she left that night to see the comet and never came back."

Timothy's face fell at the update as he fills both cups with Sprite, gives the drinks to them, and then gets some paper plates for the pizzas. "I see, I wish she told me that she was leaving this world..."

"You really believe that the comet brought her out of this universe?" Andrew asks with the brunette nodding.

"I know it, it's too much of a coincidence for her to just run away without saying anything."

Robert softly stares at the boy before he nods to him. "You're right. Wherever she is, she's probably causing a mountain of trouble for the natives."

Andrew snickers at his passiveness, for he knows that his partner is secretly missing his chases with her. "I bet you she's being chased by the real Smoker right now."

Timothy giggles at the thought of her pissing off the real White Chaser as he goes to the oven. "She's probably messing with him by saying he has a long lost twin and is calling him 'Bobby the Second'."

The two teasers laugh at the assumption while Robert tiredly sighs at their joke. "I pity him if that's the case..."

Timothy grins at them as he pulls out the slices from the oven, puts them on paper plates, and gives them to his customers. "How long will the search last?"

"We can't tell you that, but we'll let you know what we find." Robert says as he pays for the meal and heads out with his partner.

"I'll hold you to it!" Timothy says as he waves them off until they leave. Once he's alone, he tiredly sighs as he looks to the window, that no longer holds Rose's photos, but now holds help wanted posters.

As he thinks that life is finally becoming stable again, something outside destroys that belief. That being a pair of twin girls with too much makeup on, tank tops, shorts that barely cover their butts, and their curly blond hair in ponytails, walking inside.

"Oh, hell no!" He immediately recognizes the sisters from Rose's video, and goes to his soda gun before he glares at the girls from behind his glasses. "What do you two want?!"

Marie and Laura both grow nervous under the evil glare, that reminds them of Rose's glare of death, but that's the least of their problems. For even though they weren't charged for helping Rick in the abuse, they now have to provide for themselves as legal adults.

From what Timothy can see though, that isn't going well for them as Marie nervously steps up. "We're not here to cause trouble."

The employee however, keeps his guard up as he sets the soda gun to orange soda. "Then what are you doing here?"

"We need jobs..." Laura begrudgingly says as she looks around the small restaurant. "We're desperate, no one will take us."

Marie nods as she stands her ground. "You guys didn't replace the comet freak yet, did you? Then-"

She stops when she and Laura loudly squeal in fear as they jump to dodge the shots of orange soda that are flying at them.

Naomi leaves the kitchen when she hears the loud noise, and widens her brown eyes at the sight of Rose's foster sisters running around the room to avoid her son's soda shots.

Timothy doesn't notice his mom's arrival as he stops shooting and glares at the spoiled women. "If you bitches are still calling her that then you haven't learned anything! Give me one good reason to hire you!"

Laura steps up to him with a seductive smirk as she leans over the counter and bats her eyelashes at him. "With a pair of beauties like us, we can bring you in way more customers."

Timothy blankly stares at the flirting girl before he points his soda gun at her face with a dark scowl, and speaks in a low, scary tone. **"Listen to me _very_ closely, even if I wasn't gay, I wouldn't be interested. Also, all that makeup doesn't make you look beautiful, it makes you look pathetic."**

The poor girl didn't know whether to be more frightened or embarrassed by his reaction, as she takes a step back with tears in her blue eyes.

Marie rushes to give her a comforting hug before she glares at him. "We don't see a lot of people lining up for this place! What other choice do you have?!"

He's heard enough as he gets ready to fire, but Naomi puts her hand in front of the device to stop him. "Hold on Timothy, we should hire them."

Timothy can't believe what he's hearing, but before he could protest, his mom starts whispering her plan into his ear.

The twins have no idea what she's saying, but they begin to get scared when they see a demonic smirk growing on the boy's chubby face with each passing second. Even though they want to run, they don't feel like they have a lot of options for this is the tenth place that they tried to get a job in.

They nervously see where this goes as Naomi finishes whispering her plan to her son.

Timothy snickers to what she has his mind, as he puts down the gun, and extends his hands out to the girls with a friendly grin. "Welcome to La Bella Pizzeria ladies. My name's Timothy."

Both girls find his newfound friendliness unsettling, but they timidly shake hands with the devil of a supervisor as Marie introduces herself. "I-I'm Marie and this is my sister Laura."

Naomi nods in satisfaction as she steps up to the curvy girls. "My name's Naomi, I should have some t-shirts that can fit you in the back. Come with me."

She goes to the kitchen, but stops at the door to turn to her son. "As for you, clean up the soda stains."

"Okie dokie!" Timothy salutes her as he watches her go into the kitchen with the new employees. Once he's alone, he evilly giggles at the development, for his mother just planned for the girls to take on the worst clean up jobs in the restaurant, including the men's restrooms.

He can't help but enjoy their form of revenge against Rose's foster family as he goes to clean up the orange soda stains on the floor and walls. _*Too bad you couldn't see how things turned out here Rose. Hope you're happy wherever you are.*_

He keeps his thoughts to his lost friend, as he cleans up the restaurant, and supervises the new employees.

* * *

"ACHOO!" Rose accidentally sneezes, just when she makes it back to the Merry and sends herself flying.

She manages to catch herself with her wind, before she can hit the sails, and wipes her nose with the back of her gloved hand as she lands onto the deck. "Damn, someone must be talking about me again."

She shrugs to herself as she drops her sack of gold on the deck and goes inside with her spear and backpack. Once she reaches the girls' room, she leans her new weapon against the wall and grabs her journal from under her cot.

The wind girl can't help but put a smile on her freckled face from what she has planned as she neatly tears a blank sheet of paper from the book. She wastes no time in putting the journal back in her bag before she rushes to Nami's desk for a pen, and writes a letter for her New York friends, to tell them that she's alright. _*I'm not sure if it can actually reach them, but I'll at least see how the crystal does it.*_

As soon as she finishes her letter, she folds it, and puts it in the outer pocket of her bag just before she hears shouting outside!

"ROSE, HURRY UP AND GET THE SAILS READY!"

The astronomer widens her purple eyes at Luffy's order as she runs outside with her bag strapped on and sees that the crew is running towards the ship, like they're being chased by an angry mob. However, the only thing chasing them is a group of natives that are carrying a golden pillar, that's half the size of the ship, that they want to give away as a thank you gift.

Rose chuckles at the misunderstanding, but she doesn't bother to correct them because the gold's weight would be too much for Merry, so she flies up to the sails. "HANG ON GUYS!"

She uses her wind to create a strong enough gust to carry the crew to the ship and drops them onto the deck, so that she can focus on releasing the sails.

While Zoro brings the anchor up, the others settle the gold on the deck just as the sails are unfolded.

The crew ignores the natives' calls to come back as they rush to move the ship along.

Rose can't help but grin at the excitement as she blasts her wind against the sails, to bring them to their next adventure, and leave the Sky Island behind.

TO BE CONTINUED


	34. Chapter 34

After the crew stole the gold from the island, and escaped the island on the Merry, the crew began to relax as they sail the white seas towards the exit at the east end.

Rose grins in satisfaction of the arc finally reaching its completion as she jumps off the crow's nest and cushions her fall with a gust of wind. Once her feet touch the deck, she sees that Conis and her father are catching up to them on a small crow boat.

Nami grins at the guests as she waves over to them. "Hey, what are you doing?"

"We came to see you off, and help you go down to the blue sea safely." Conis says as her dad pilots the ship, so that they're sailing right next to them.

Robin walks up to the railing and looks over their companions curiously. "How can you help us?"

"You'll find out right now. We're almost at the exit." Conis points ahead to show that she's right, for they're going to be approaching a large, majestic gate that says 'Cloud End' at the top.

Zoro raises an eyebrow at the seemingly easy exit. "So this path just takes us down?"

Conis nods as her boat stops moving. "This is as far as we can go. Good luck!"

"Thanks for all your help!" Nami says as she waves them off.

"Until we meet again!" Sanji says as he waves at them with the others.

Pagaya sees that the crew's sails are open and calls out to them. "I'M SORRY, BUT YOU SHOULD CLOSE YOUR SAILS!"

"THANKS FOR THE HEADS UP!" Rose yells back as she flies up to close the sails.

"We should put the gold away too!" Chopper says as he goes into heavy point to carry some of the gold inside while Zoro and Luffy help him take in the rest.

As the wind girl finishes tying up the sails, she sees what's ahead just as the crew is about to pass the gate. When she remembers what's about to come, she chuckles to herself as she sits in the crow's nest and grabs onto the edge. "You guys might want to hang onto something!"

The others stare up at the cautious seventeen year old in confusion, just when the guys come back outside, before they all look ahead to find that they're about to fall off the edge of the cloud.

Every last one of them, except for Robin and Rose, drop their jaws in horror of the sight of the world below them just before they free fall to the blue sea.

Conis giggles at the terrified shrieks from most of the pirates as she grabs a whistle. "Time to help out, balloon octopus!"

She blows the whistle so loud that it can be heard throughout the depths of the white sea. Once the shrill sound was finished, a giant pink and purple octopus jumps out of the water, just above the ship.

Nami, Usopp, and Chopper scream in fright of the sea creature while the others, except for Rose, get ready for a fight. However, before they could do anything, they collapse on their faces because the ship's falling slowed down exponentially.

Rose chuckles at the catch from her spot in the crow's nest, as she lifts her head to find that the giant octopus caught them and is using its body like a parachute by gathering enough air to give the Merry a gentle descent.

Knowing that they're safe, she allows herself a moment to relax and take in the breathtaking view of the world around them from their place in the clear afternoon sky. "I freaking love this place..."

Luffy laughs at the catch as he looks at all the giant tentacles that are holding onto the ship. "This is so awesome!"

"I'll be damned." Sanji says as he grabs his cigarette and lights it up before he heads to the kitchen to walk about the gold.

Robin only grins at the birds flying past them before she and most of the others start going inside.

Rose however, takes a moment to photograph her surroundings from her seat on the crow's nest, as she thinks of what's to come next. _*Going by the manga, we should be heading to the Davy Back fight after we reach the ocean.*_

She quietly sighs to herself while she puts her camera in her bag and remembers the crew's encounter with the Foxy pirates and Aokiji. _*Man, that arc's gonna be a pain in the ass... At least seeing afro Luffy makes up for it.*_

She chuckles at the exciting thought of Luffy fighting in an afro before she vaults over the crow's nest. The wind girl creates a gust to land on the deck before she starts walking below deck.

Before the brunette can reach the door though, Luffy opens the kitchen door and waves her over. "Hey Rose, come inside!"

Rose grins at the invitation, before she points to her door. "In a minute, I gotta take care of something first."

He nods in agreement as he goes back to the kitchen to demand to buy a bronze statue.

As Rose heads inside though, she's unaware that her comment was overheard by Robin. As the archaeologist sits down at the table, she closes her eyes and creates an eye on the hallway wall to see where her crew mate is going. When she finds out that she's just heading to the bathroom though, she cancels out her power and leaves her alone.

Rose however is planning to perform her experiment in the private room, so she doesn't take any chances as she locks the heavy bolt on the door, that Nami had Usopp install for privacy. She even inspects the entire room, along with herself and her backpack, for any of Robin's spying appendages. Once she knows that she's alone, she sits cross legged on the floor, opens her bag and gently carries out the tied up box that holds her samples.

She feels more like a child opening a Christmas gift than a scientist right now, as she rushes to untie the handkerchief that she wrapped around her stone box. As soon as she takes off the lid, her smile couldn't get any bigger while she stares at the two red and black gems that hold a blue luminescence thanks to the Timore comet's power. _*Alright, I should only need one for this.*_

The brunette gently sets the small container on the floor, before she makes sure that her dark grey glove is covering her hands. With a look of determination, she takes a deep breath before she clears her mind and keeps it from thinking about the many worlds out there. With her mind blank, she slowly touches one of the gems, that's a little smaller than the other, and waits for a reaction.

When her body isn't taking in the comet's energy, she lets out a breath that she didn't know she was holding, and plucks the jewel from the box. _*So, touching them doesn't automatically do it. At least when I don't have a desire to leave. It might be because I'm wearing gloves too.*_

She grins at the new theories before she puts the lid back on her box and stares down at her necklace. Her eyes move from one crystal to another, before she touches the jewel she's holding to the one she's wearing around her neck.

After a moment, she takes the glowing crystal away from her necklace, but no changes were made to her family's treasure. "The radiation isn't transferable between them on first contact either. Long term contact might do it, but that can wait."

The excited girl shakes her head to help herself get focused on the real test as she gently places her sample on the floor. She goes into her backpack and pulls out the letter, that she made for Naomi, Timothy, and Bobby, and scans over the long note to make sure that it holds everything that she wants to say.

As she reads over the reassuring words to her friends with a soft grin, something in the back of her mind tells her that something is missing, and she knows exactly what that is. She digs into her bag until she pulls out the envelope of photos that she made from her adventures in Skypiea.

Rose shuffles through the pictures until she reaches the one that Luffy took of her sitting alone on top of a palm tree and giving him the peace sign. She nods in satisfaction as she takes the picture out of the stack, then piles both that and the stone onto the letter.

After she puts her memories back in the bag, she rubs the palms of her hands together to steel her nerves before she takes off her gloves and bandages from her hands. When her cream-colored fingers can be seen, she hesitantly reaches for the crystal with one hand. As soon as her middle finger touches the gem, a shiver unintentionally runs through her whole body from the icy cold stone.

The astronomer mentally notes the feeling, then puts two more fingers on the jewel, moves her thoughts to the restaurant that made her last few years in New York less painful, and talks under her breath. "Please go to La Bella Pizzeria on 12th street in New York City, USA…"

She stares at the stone intently, as she keeps her fingers on the freezing gem, but nothing happens at all. She feels an awkward silence fill the room before she groans in frustration and picks it up. _*What's missing from the night I left?*_

The astronomer keeps the cold stone in her warm hand, and examines it for a way to make it work until the door handle starts shaking. She jolts at the noise as she fumbles with the gem until she catches it with both hands, and turns to the locked door. "Give me a minute!"

"Hurry up!"

Rose starts to relax when she hears Zoro's voice from the other side of the door and goes to her sample's container. "Don't get your boxers in a bunch, I'm almost-!"

She stops when she feels the chill growing in her hands, then looks down to discover that the stone's blue glow is starting to flow out of it and is spreading onto her hands!

"HOLY SHIT!" She throws the crystal onto her letter and photo, before she jumps up from her seat on the floor to wash her hands with hot water.

Zoro widens his eyes at the frightened yell as he tries to push the door open, but it won't budge. "Oi, what's going on in there?!"

When Rose notices that the radiation from her hands is fading away, she lets out a breath of relief, and calls out to her crew mate. "I'm ok, sorry for the-!"

She stops when she sees that she has no time to relax, because the blue radiation from her stone is spreading onto her photo and letter. "Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap!"

She frantically uses her wind to lift up the three items before the energy can spread onto the floor and ignores Zoro's worried calls. She continues to ignore the door's loud banging as she keeps the three piled items levitating a few feet in the air.

While her focus remains on her experiment, her wide eyes marvel at the fascinating sight of the comet's energy spreading onto the papers.

Once all three items are completely covered in a sky blue luminescence, and with nothing else for the radiation to spread to, all three of them begin to vanish just when the swordsman slashes through the door with two of his weapons.

Zoro widens his eyes at the floating blue objects before they disappear in a matter of seconds, as if they were never there. He blinks at the crazy sight, but he can't find any traces of the glowing items.

He sees Rose still in a stupor from witnessing such a beautiful sight, as she leans back against the sink to keep herself from collapsing. "Oi, what the hell happened?!"

The astronomer finally snaps out of it and sees that the box on the floor is still sealed. She feels relieved that he doesn't see that her second sample is the same crystal as her necklace.

However, she knows that she's not off the hook yet, so she nervously looks at him and waves her arms around frantically while she talks a mile a minute. "Dude, did you see that?! It was fucking crazy! I got this weird rock back on the island and when I was holding it, my hands turned blue! Then when I threw it on the ground to wash my hands, it made the things it touched turn blue! I made them float, so it wouldn't affect anything else, and then poof!"

She throws her arms into the air for dramatic effect, to make it seem like she's lost her mind. Thankfully the tactic works, for he can only stare at her blankly before he sheethes his swords. "I got nothing from that except you finding weird rocks..."

He notices the stone box on the floor and widens his eyes at the blue glow leaking from the cracks of the container. "Wait, is another one in-?!"

He cuts himself off when they hear the others screaming outside before the two of them, along with every movable object in the room, suddenly fly up until they reach the ceiling!

Zoro groans from the rough flight as he pushes his torso off the ceiling, but they're still pinned. "What the hell are you doing Rose?!"

Rose scowls at the complaint before she uses her wind to push both herself and the swordsman off the ceiling, but they can only get a few inches of distance. "This isn't me, the ship's falling! Come on!"

She uses as much wind as she can muster up, to keep the two of them off the ceiling as they escape the bathroom and heads to the deck.

Rose barely has time to think about her backpack and sample that she left in the bathroom when the pirates make it outside, just to have to hold onto the doorway to keep themselves from flying off the ship.

"WHAT THE HELL'S GOING ON?!" Zoro asks as they look up to see the night sky above them instead of the octopus balloon.

"THE OCTOPUS JUST UP AND SHRUNK!" Luffy yells as he holds onto the small octopus with one hand while the other holds onto the railing.

"YOU'RE THE ONE WHO CAUSED IT BY JUMPING ON ITS HEAD!" Sanji yells as he and the others hold onto the railing for dear life.

Rose mutters a curse as she lets go of the doorway and gets herself flying on her own gust.

As Rose flies down next to the ship and goes towards the bottom, Usopp calls out to her. "I ALREADY PLACED WIND DIALS DOWN THERE TO HELP DELAY THE FALL! TRY REUSING THEM WITH YOUR WIND!"

She widens her purple eyes at what he said and realizes that she saw Usopp do this in the anime, but not in the manga. She holds off on thinking about it as she keeps going down until she's next to the bottom of the ship.

She creates as strong of a gust as she can manage under the ship, to refill the four empty wind dials that are lined up on the keel of the ship, until they're at full blast again and helping her to ease the Merry's descent.

The wind girl grins in satisfaction that the ship is falling at half the speed and glances down to find that they still have twenty feet to the ocean.

"YOU OK DOWN THERE ROSE?!" Nami calls out as she peeks her head over the railing.

Rose doesn't move her eyes from the water yet, as she keeps descending with the ship, and uses her wind to keep the wind dials at full power. "I'M FINE, I'LL BE BACK UP IN A-!"

She stops herself when she's able to get a close enough view to see exactly where they're landing. A part of the ocean that's mostly surrounded by a small, mountainous, island. However, this island has been modified by the marines to be one of the strongest fortresses on the Grand Line. _*OH HELL, WE'RE HEADING TO THE NAVARONE FILLER!*_

She tries to create a stronger gust of wind, to get the ship flying, but the vessel is too heavy for her powers to carry it. "DAMMIT!"

The others become confused at Rose's distressed yell as the wind girl flies up to the railing and grabs on just as the ship hits the water in the middle of the crescent like island.

The rest of the crew hangs onto the ship to keep themselves from collapsing on the deck.

Luffy laughs at the fun ride as the others try to recover from the crazy landing. Rose however, doesn't take a break as she starts flying to the sails. "Guys, we need to get out of here! Turn the ship-!"

She cuts herself off when her nose starts tickling, but before she can stop it she sneezes off the ship and lands in the nearby forest.

"ROSE!" The others call out to her, but before they can do anything, the sound of the base's sirens begin to ring throughout the air.

As the searchlights, that are perched at the top of the island's walls begin to direct their lights onto the Merry, the pirates begin to understand why Rose was in such a rush for them to leave.

"Everyone, split up!" Nami says as she grabs her waver from the back deck and jumps off to sail to safety while the others rush to get off the boat.

As Luffy stretches his arm to the first tree he sees, Usopp pulls a grappling hook out of his belt buckle and launches it towards another tree.

Zoro decides to try another way as he dives into the water to avoid being caught.

Sanji grabs onto Luffy while Chopper and Robin grab onto the sniper just before they go flying into different parts of the woods.

However, the doctor loses his grip mid-flight, and screams as he falls into the trees below him.

"Chopper!" Usopp calls out, but he doesn't get an answer as Robin jumps off the sniper just before he crashes into the tree.

Robin manages to swift land on her feet before she watches Usopp land on his face. "I'm sure doctor-kun and the others are alright. For now, we need to hide."

Usopp reluctantly agrees as he gets up and runs deeper into the woods with Robin.

Meanwhile, the wind girl flies on the same level as the trees until she reaches the coastline. When she sees the ship starting to be surrounded by lifeboats full of marine officers, she knows that she's too late. Once flashlights start flashing towards the island, she hides in one of the trees and sits on one of its thick branches as she glares at the distant officers in frustration. _*Damn, with my research in there, the World Government's going to find out! Hold on…*_

She starts calming down when she finds out that if the base holds any record of the night that the researchers disappeared, then this can be a perfect opportunity for her to uncover more of the comet's mystery. With that possibility in mind, her lips begin to curl up into a smirk. "I don't know if I'm being lucky or unlucky, but this is going to be interesting either way."

She snickers to herself when she sees that the officers are no longer flashing lights onto the shore, as they focus on inspecting the ship. She takes this as her best chance to infiltrate the fortress as she uses the darkness of the night to fly towards the fortress.

As the pirate flies towards enemy territory, she surveys the area below her and spots a lone fisherman walking towards the base, so she keeps close to the trees as she watches him go inside. Once she knows that she's safe she flies up to the building, then glances in each window until finds an empty room and invites herself inside the stronghold.

* * *

As the thousands of marine officers scramble around the fortress to close the sea gate and trap the new pirates inside, a lieutenant is going to the command room to understand the situation.

The middle-aged man, with brown muttonchop sideburns on his face, keeps a deep scowl on his face as he enters the command room. "What are we facing?"

The dozen subordinates in the room rise from their seats to salute them as a young man explains what they know. "Lieutenant Drake sir, from what we've gathered, the Straw Hats have invaded the base."

Drake widens his eyes at the news before he re-composes himself. "Where's commander Jonathan?!"

The marine, who spoke up nervously stares at the door before he gives his commanding officer his answer. "Well sir, none of us know where he is…"

The lieutenant grits his teeth at how his nonchalant leader would be missing at a time like this before he turns around. "Of course, he is. Keep me updated on any news."

"YES SIR!" The men immediately get back to work as Drake storms off to search for his leader. However, he didn't have to search for long because as soon as he reached his commander's office he finds the man, that was fishing outside just a moment ago, approaching the office. "There you are commander! Don't tell me you were out night fishing again!"

The orange haired man with a thick, dark brown, eyebrows and mustache only gives him a calm smile as he walks inside with his subordinate in pursuit. The muscular commander takes off his fishing gear as he stares out the window. "You shouldn't be so worried; night fishing isn't a waste you know?"

"You shouldn't be out fishing at a time like-!" Drake stops himself when a knock is heard at the door.

Both officers stop their conversation as they see one of the officers entering the room. "Commander, I have a report from the watchmen and maintenance men."

Jonathan nods to him as he goes to his fishing pole to do maintenance on it. "Go on."

The subordinate has no idea on how to explain the report without sounding crazy, but in fear of getting scolded by Drake he speaks as much of it as he can. "The crews reported that they saw ghosts. They're saying that the ship fell from the sky, but before any pirate can be seen there was no one there. There was also rumors about hands sprouting off the ship, a monster with a pink hat, and someone flying through the air."

Drake grits his teeth at the claim as he bangs his hand on the desk. "DO YOU EXPECT US TO BELIEVE THAT IT'S HAUNTED?!"

The officer resists the urge to flinch from the outburst as he keeps his posture. "Those are the claims from the others sir."

"I didn't ask for ghost stories, I asked for reconnaissance! And don't come lying to me about a ship falling from the sky!"

Jonathan chuckles at his subordinate's irritation as he finishes adjusting his fishing rod and goes into his bounty drawer. "Now take it easy, the part about it falling from the sky is true. And about the flying person, I'm sure it's one of the crew members."

Drake and the subordinate look at him in confusion before Jonathan shows them Luffy, Zoro, and Rose's wanted posters. "As I said, night fishing isn't a waste."

Drake reads over the three posters and stops at the drawing of the lowest bounty of the trio, who has an epithet that can prove that she can fly. "So you're saying this Wind Rider Rose brought the ship here?"

Jonathan shakes his head as he gets up. "I wouldn't say that, she could have something to do with the crew escaping. In any case, we should find more information about them at the source."

Drake raises an eyebrow in confusion until he understands that he means going to the ship, so he follows his leader out of the base and on a lifeboat to reach the caravel that's caused the base so much trouble.

The navy officers onboard are already in action as the men and women start photographing every section of the ship.

As soon as Jonathan and Drake reach the deck, they immediately head to the kitchen to find eight empty coffee cups set out on the table with a pot of coffee on a cold stove.

Jonathan takes the pot and pours the contents into a cup to see that the liquid is still hot. _*So, they didn't leave for long…*_

He and Drake get approached by a marine who's carrying an arm full of the crew's treasure. "Sir we found something!"

The commander hums in interest as he examines the ancient gold. "The pirates must've stole them from some ancient city."

Drake scowls at the treasure before he turns to the soldier. "Get them to the lab!"

"Yes-"

"COMMANDER!" Drake and Jonathan freeze at the high and low voices calling for Jonathan, before they turn to the door to find a man and woman pair running into the kitchen in a frenzy.

The man is still catching his breath while the female officer points outside. "Sir, there's something you need to see in the bathroom!"

The two superiors hum in confusion before they follow the lower level officers below deck. What they find in the bathroom astonishes them both, for on the tile floor, is a red and black gem with a blue glow and is surrounded by fragments of its broken container.

Drake goes up to the crystal and crouches down before it. "What kind of a rock is this?"

He goes to grab it, but before his fingers can touch it, Jonathan swats his hand away.

Drake rubs his hand before he looks up to his superior. "What's the matter sir?"

Jonathan keeps his narrows eyes on the crystal as he remembers what his mentor, Akainu, has told him about it. "Drake, have you heard of a taboo known as Hell's comet?"

The lieutenant knits his eyebrows in confusion before he shakes his head.

The commander nods in understanding before he spots the red backpack that's lying on the ground. He goes through the contents of the bag until he pulls out Rose's golden colored journal. With one glance at the notes, he can easily tell that the owner is investigating the comet that caused so many people to disappear over twenty years ago. "It appears that this crew has an astronomer who's studying it..."

The lieutenant raises an eyebrow at the cryptic answer as he gets up. "What does this have to do with anything?"

Jonathan's eyes move to the stone before he puts the book down. "It's rumored that red and black crystals, such as the one on the floor have the ability to absorb radiation. Combined with the power of Hell's comet, a group of them caused an entire research staff to disappear into the underworld, because they were messing around with them. It could be that our ghost pirates shared the same fate."

Drake doesn't believe a word of it as he approaches him. "You can't be serious."

"Oh, but I am." Jonathan looks to the two officers at the door, who are staring to the tiny gem in horror, before he speaks to them. "Get me a small box and see if you can find some tongs in the kitchen."

"Yes sir!" The two officers rush to get the requested items before they return with the objects.

Jonathan takes the silver tongs and the small, tin, box in his hands before he kneels in front of the stone. He carefully uses the tong to pick up the stone and drop it into the open box before he closes it tight, and hands it to the female officer. "Please bring this to the lab with the rest of the gold."

"Y-yes sir!" She rushes off with the mysterious item while her partner gets back to searching the ship.

Once the dangerous jewel is gone, Jonathan turns to his lieutenant with a grin. "Let's see what else we can uncover."

Drake hesitantly agrees as he follows him through the bedrooms, and then back to the kitchen where the officers are piling books onto the table.

As Jonathan searches through the cooking equipment, he can easily tell that everything is in perfect condition. When he sees all the books on the table, he approaches them as he listens to another officer explain.

"We found a collection of medical, history, and astronomy books here. They're all in good condition too."

He hums in interest as he picks up one of the books. "It seems like our _ghosts_ study a lot."

Drake holds back the urge to roll his eyes as he scowls at his superior. "Please tell me you don't believe in ghosts..."

Jonathan chuckles at Drake's disbelief before he goes outside and claps his hands to get everyone's attention. Once he knows that every male and female officers' eyes are on him, he gives them a relaxed grin. "You've all done wonderfully, I need you all to remain vigilant on this investigation of the ghost ship."

The officers begin to murmur to one another nervously about his claim that it's a haunted ship. However, the commander acts like he couldn't care less as he goes to his life boat. "Back to work everyone."

"YES SIR!" The officers salute their commander as Drake joins Jonathan on the boat and sails with him back to the base.

As soon as the two men reach the base they're joined by two captains as Jonathan leads them through the halls. While they roam the halls, as if it's a casual meeting, Jonathan voices his findings. "It appears that the crew made it through Jaya."

The others look at him in confusion as he keeps explaining. "The coffee aroma can only be made from the beans in Jaya. Also, legend has it that there is a city of gold in Jaya."

One of the captain's widens his eyes at the assumption. "So you're saying it's not-"

"I don't know what the crew's doing here, or where the members are, but that boat is just a pirate ship from Jaya." Jonathan says without missing a single step in his stride.

"Then what about the speech about Hell's comet?" Drake asks which makes Jonathan stop in his tracks, with the others following suit.

The commander scowls at what he's heard of the taboo as he turns around to face them. "The story about the researchers disappearing is true. One of these pirates is an astronomer that is committing the taboo of studying Hell's comet. However, if the entire crew was to disappear, then they would've left in the kitchen or on the deck. If this person was working in the bathroom, then they were conducting the experiments alone. Either that criminal is long gone by now, or they were about to start working but stopped when the ship came here."

The three male officers, glance to each other anxiously for a moment before one of them speaks up to his superior. "So why did you tell the others that it was a ghost ship?"

Jonathan chuckles at the question before he starts walking again with a relaxed grin, while the others follow. "To be honest, our men are too inexperienced to handle something like this. If we tell everyone that the infamous Straw Hats have snuck into our ranks, it'll cause chaos. So for now, we keep calling it a ghost ship, understand?"

"Yes sir." The two captains say, but Drake goes up next to him.

He keeps a stern look on his face as he voices his opinion. "With all due respect, I suggest we form a small unit to search for the pirates."

Jonathan stops again just as they reach his office and turns to his men. "Now don't be hasty, our defenses have to be our top priority."

Before Drake can object, Jonathan faces one of the captains. "You, go reinforce security at the gate as well as the coast."

"Yes sir." He salutes his commander before he goes off to do what's asked of him.

He points to another one to give him his orders. "I want the ammunition storage and passageways secured. You have my authority to handle the task as you see fit."

"Thank you sir." He goes to the ammunition storage to get started.

Jonathan sees that Drake's unsatisfied with the order and raises an eyebrow in confusion. "Is there a problem?"

Drake bites back his complaint to not doing enough before he keeps his head down. "No."

The commander nods in satisfaction as he opens the door to his office "Don't worry, the night's still young. Their movements are restricted by the darkness. When dawn strikes you can assemble a team to track down the Straw Hats. I suggest starting to investigate in places where people gather."

"Where they gather?" Drake asks with his superior nodding.

"Yes, because it's difficult to tell one person from a crowd. Especially when it's rather easy for the pirates to pick up some of our uniforms."

Drake immediately understands what he means when Jonathan looks at him seriously. "It's not that I don't trust my officers. It's that we're searching for some rather clever enemies."

Drake clenches his fists at the situation, but he understands what his superior is saying. "I'll get started as soon as dawn breaks."

Jonathan nods with a carefree grin as he goes into the room. "I recommend the dining hall first, as well as the archives in case our astronomer is still around."

"Yes sir!" He salutes his leader before he goes off on his own to get to work.

What neither marine knew though, was that up in the air vents above them, Rose has been tailing them since Jonathan explained that it wasn't a ghost ship and stealthily listened in on their conversation.

As soon as Drake's gone, Rose quietly army crawls in the vent as she glances in each room she passes, in hopes of finding a bunker.

While she's searching for the room, she doesn't know whether to be happy or worried about what she heard. At one hand, it seems like they didn't discover that she's the one studying the taboo. With Jonathan wanting his team to search the archives, she knows that the information she's looking for is here too. If she can make it to the library in a uniform before dawn, then she won't have any problems.

On the other hand, it could raise more questions from Robin if she hears them talking about her work. Also, the wind girl can tell that Vice Admiral Jonathan will want to uncover the mystery of who's the one studying the taboo.

She holds herself back from groaning as she travels the vents while she tries to remember what she knows about the filler arc. _*Ok, so Luffy and Sanji are gonna be together in the kitchen. Nami will be here soon in a janitor disguise then dressed as a nurse. Zoro winds up getting caught with Usopp following him when his disguise doesn't work. Robin manages to impersonate Condoriano, and Chopper passes himself off as a surgeon…*_

She knits her eyebrows in thought of how she goes about surviving the base. She knows that everyone won't be in until morning, so for now she needs take this chance to get a disguise, and visit the library for any knowledge on the Timore Comet's incident.

If she can't get in, then she just needs to blend in as much as possible without getting caught. That can't be too hard right?

She shudders at the many possibilities that she can get caught if she tries to blend in, so she silently hopes that she can get to the library when she hears two female voices giggling below her. She stops and looks through the grate to find two girls talking to one another as they're adjusting their uniforms.

The pirate couldn't see either of their faces thanks to the thick grate, but she can clearly hear them.

"So, it's true that the pirate ship's haunted? How did it get here?"

Rose immediately freezes up at the navy officer's voice, because it sounds almost exactly like her own voice. _*What the hell?!*_

She pushes her face as close to the grate as she could, but she can't get a clear view of her face as her friend speaks to her.

"I heard that the ship fell straight from the sky!"

"Really?! That's so cool! Think we'll meet the ghosts if we can take a post there?!"

Rose couldn't stop herself from smiling at how bubbly her voice sounds from the officer as she barely sees the figures grabbing their rifles.

The second girl chuckles at her friend's excitement as she straps the gun to her shoulder. "Maybe if you do well with training tonight then you can ask for a post there. By the way, I like the color contacts but what did you do to your cheeks?"

The marine with Rose's voice casually shrugs as she straps on her weapon. "Just practicing my makeup skills in case we ever need disguises. Do they look real?"

Rose raises an eyebrow to what 'they' really are, for she can't see them, while her friend heads to the door while she answers in an approving tone. "If I didn't know you, then I'd have thought they were natural. Let's get going before we miss dinner."

The officer silently agrees as she follows her out of the room and turns off the light.

Taking that as a sign that there's no one else in the room, Rose pulls the grate out of the vent, and jumps down to get into the room. Once she's locked the door and turned the lights back on, she surveys the orderly room to see that it holds ten bunk beds, each with two trunks in front of them.

She immediately goes to the bed where the two girls were talking and opens the trunks to find that the one in her right has clothes that can fit her. As she grabs the uniform and changes clothes, her mind begins to drift to the unknown marine who shares her voice.

The navy officer sounded so similar to the pirate's tone, that it was like she was listening to herself talk.

Rose shakes her head to snap out of it as she finishes changing and puts her hair into a ponytail. _*Now's not the time to be wondering about voices!*_

She grabs a cap from the trunk and puts it on before she looks inside for anything else for the uniform, but that's all she needs as she finds another uniform neatly piled in the corner, while on the other side of the box holds a makeup kit, a stationary, stuffed envelopes, and a small mirror.

She reaches inside for the mirror, to make sure the blue neck scarf is straight, but stops when she notices that the reflection isn't moving with her!

She silently gasps when she realizes that it's not a mirror, but actually a photo of the marine who has her voice.

The wind girl can feel her blood run cold as she stares at her own face, with only two differences between her and the marine in the picture. The first being that Rose's freckles are nowhere to be seen on the girl's pale complexion. The second being that instead of a pair of amethyst eyes staring at her, big, dark green orbs take their place. "You've-you've gotta be fucking kidding me…"

With a trembling hand, she reaches for the photo of the brown-haired girl, to get a closer look in hopes of it being a joke. However, as she holds onto the image, there's no denying what this means for her. _*MY DOPPELGANGER'S A MARINE!*_

TO BE CONTINUED


	35. Chapter 35

Rose can only stare at the photo of the One Piece version of herself and try to process the new information calmly. She knew that it was possible for her to meet her doppelganger on her journey with the crew, but she never expected it to happen so soon. Most of all, she never thought in her wildest dreams that this version of her would join up arms with the same government that she despises!

She shakes her head from the distressing news of having to be the marine's enemy, and calms herself down by remembering the guidelines that she and her family made involving doppelgangers. "We're not the same person, we just have the same face. And I guess the same voice too…"

The wind girl sighs at the weird discovery, but she can't deny that this is a perfect way to blend in the base. With that in mind, she makes the best of the situation by grabbing the makeup kit from the trunk, and going through it for things to make herself look exactly like the girl in the photo.

She finds an arrangement of color contacts in one of the compartments, and can't help but be impressed by the vast collection. She scans over the rainbow of lenses for the green ones, but stops when she sees that a pair of purple contacts are missing. _*Her friend mentioned that she was wearing contacts. Did she wear the ones that match my eyes?*_

The brunette holds herself back from laughing at the irony before she gently picks up a pair of dark green contacts that match the photo's eyes. She goes to the wall mirror and forces herself to pry her eyes open until she got the contacts on each eyeball.

"Ack!" She grumbles in irritation while she blinks the tears away. _*How the crap does this girl wear this?!*_

She lightly rubs her eyes to help get used to them before she looks to the mirror to see that her purple eyes morphed into a pair of green orbs. "Whoa, that's actually pretty cool."

She looks through the kit until she finds some cover up for her freckles. She lightly applies the foundation onto her nose and cheeks, then puts the kit away before she grabs the photo. When she looks in the mirror, with her face next to the marine's portrait, she sees an exact replica of the doppelganger's appearance. Even their bangs, and hair color match to the point where she'd doubt anyone could tell them apart.

The fake marine chuckles in satisfaction of the new disguise, and looks out the window to see that she still has time before the sun comes up. "I'd better go."

She makes sure that her necklace is hidden under her shirt before she puts away the makeup kit and photo, then places her regular clothes in the trunk as payment for taking the uniform. Before she closes the box though, she looks to the two stuffed envelopes and takes them out of the bunker with her.

The wind girl casually walks around as if she knows where she's going until she sees some officers walking in her direction. She gives them a small grin as she walks up to them to test the disguise. "Hey guys, can you help me?"

The two boys stop walking before they give the imposter a grin. "Sure Lily, what you do need?"

She holds back from flinching at the fact that her doppelganger also has a flower name, as she looks around. "I need to go to the library, but I forgot how to get there. Can you point me in the right direction?"

The officers were taken aback by the information before they start chuckling.

Rose raises an eyebrow at the laughter and wonders if she said something out of character. "What?"

One of them calms down and gives her an apologetic grin. "Sorry, we're just surprised that you of all people forgot where the library is."

The other one nods as he points to the hall behind them. "I guess keeping your nose in the books when you walk could do that. Just go down this hallway until you find a staircase. Then go down a floor and head straight until you find the giant doors. You can't miss them."

Rose nods to the instructions as she walks past them. "Thanks, I'll try to remember from now on. I'll see you around."

They wave her off before they go off on their way.

As Rose follows the directions to the library, she can't help but chuckle at the new discovery about the marine she's copying. _*So, this Lily's a bookworm. That'll be helpful to blend in the library.*_

The wind girl grows more curious about what her doppelganger's like and looks down at the envelopes that she stole from the marine's trunk. She takes out the contents of one of the parcels and sees that it's a letter.

 **Hi Lily,**

 **How has training been? Are they treating you right? Honestly, Water Seven just hasn't been the same since you left. Almost everyone who walks in the shop asks about you, and are almost as worried about you as we are. Even so, we know you're going to bring out the best of the navy. We can't tell you how proud we are in that you're pursuing your dream to help others. Hope you can write back soon. We'd love to hear about your life as a marine.**

 **If there's anything you need from us, just say the word.**

 **Lots of love from home,**

 **Mom and Dad**

Rose stops walking, at the entrance to the staircase, as she finishes reading the loving letter from Lily's living parents with a small cold breeze flowing off her for a moment, before it changes to a light, warm, gust. Her frown changes to a small grin from the news that they're still alive in this world and looks through the other envelope. "So, they're from Water Seven..."

She chuckles at the irony in that her copy is also from a big city, before she finds that the other envelope only holds some photos. She skims through them to find pictures of Lily and her dad posing for the camera.

She hums in thought as she takes note of the father having the same dark brown hair and scrawny physique as her own dad. However, he has no glasses to hide his brown eyes, and no freckles on his pale face. _*Looks like she got most of her dad's features. What about her mom?*_

Rose looks through the small pile, but she can't find a single image of the doppelganger's mother. The wind girl furrows her eyebrows at the missing picture. She can understand if she was the one taking the pictures, but it doesn't stop her from being disappointed in not finding out if her mother's doppelganger is there.

She grumbles to herself before she puts the photos back and stuff the envelopes in her pocket. _*Now's not the time to be thinking about that theory. I need to get going.*_

The pirate shakes her head and starts going down the stairs.

Meanwhile, on the floor below, a pale marine girl storms out of the training room in a huff. The cadet adjusts the rifle on her back and the sword on her belt, to make sure that they won't fall from her fast pace, as she grumbles to herself. "I can't believe weapons training got cancelled, but not tomorrow's close combat training! I couldn't even get a post on the ghost ship…"

The brunette pouts at not getting the chance to meet a ghost, and looks ahead to see the corner she needs to turn to get to the library. She grins at the new opportunity to learn about the supernatural, and barely pays attention to her surroundings as she rushes to turn, but instead bumps into Rose.

The wind girl steps backs from the hit and bows her head to the marine. "Sorry about that, I-!"

"Who the heck are you?"

Rose widens her eyes at the question and looks up in horror to see her doppelganger sharing the same shocked expression that she has.

Rose looks closer at the girl to see that she's right in her assumption that Lily is wearing purple contacts, but what surprised her is that she used makeup on her cheeks to make it seem like she has freckles. _*Oh my god, it's like we switched faces!*_

She bites the inside of her cheek to keep herself from laughing when she sees Lily about to scream. Before she could though, Rose covers her mouth with one hand and wraps the other arm around her torso to easily drag the struggling girl through the closest door.

Thankfully, it was an empty supply closet, so Rose can relax as she releases her hold to turn on the light. "Please calm down, I promise I'm not-!"

Lily cuts her off as she pulls out her sword and swings the back of the blade, but drops her jaw when her sword goes through her. She stumbles forward from the phased hit, goes through the wind girl's body, and hits the closed door with her face.

Rose takes a deep breath to keep herself from laughing at the failed attempt to hit her. "S-sorry about that. If you calm down, I can explain."

Lily rubs her aching nose and glares at her attacker. "Don't bother, I know exactly what's going on."

The wind girl tenses up at her glare, before she clenches her fists to get ready to throw a punch. "Y-you do?"

The marine only nods before she sheathes her sword.

The pirate raises an eyebrow at her putting her weapon away, then grows more confused when she sees the marine's lips curl up into a goofy grin while her eyes beam in excitement. "Of course I do! You're a marine ghost! You were captured by those pirates and got caught up in the haunted ship's curse!"

Rose sweat drops at the assumption, but she doesn't have the heart to tear down the guess when she's practically glowing with innocence.

So to play along, she gives her a chuckle and floats in the air with a smile. "You guessed it! You don't need to worry, I'm pretty friendly."

Lily giggles in excitement as she tries to poke the floating girl, but Rose swats her hand away as she lands on her feet. "Please don't poke me. It's rude."

The marine blinks at the complaint and rubs the back of her neck in embarrassment. "S-sorry, I was just really excited."

She stops when she realizes that she managed to hit her and looks at the ghost in confusion. "Wait, how are you able to hit me?"

Rose casually shrugs as she gives off facts about herself. "I can be solid. I can also eat regular food to sustain myself."

Lily hums in interest as gets a closer look at her face. "But I don't get how you look like me. You even have my eye color."

Rose raises an eyebrow at the comment, as if she doesn't know her real eye color. "Aren't your eyes purple?"

"No, I'm wearing color contacts."

Rose scratches the back of her head in thought. "Well, it's hard to say exactly why we look the same. Are you bothered by it?"

Lily shakes her head. "No, it's amazing to find a ghost that looks like me. What are you doing wandering the halls anyway?"

The pirate freezes when she remembers her goal. "I'm heading to the library to do some research on how I wound up here."

The marine knits her eyebrows on why she doesn't know how she got here, until she comes up with a theory. "I see, you have amnesia. From what I've read, that can happen to people when they suddenly die. Why would the archives have your answer?"

"I heard from your commander, Jonathan, that Hell's comet might have something to do with the pirates' disappearance, for at least one of them. I want to see if any other incidents have happened in the World Government."

Lily nods in understanding. "I get it, if you find similar incidents, it could trigger something in your memories. Would you like some help?"

Rose widens her eyes at the invitation and shakes her head. "I appreciate it, but I don't want to trouble you. Besides, don't you have training?"

"Tonight's session got cancelled, because of the ghost ship's arrival. I was actually heading to the library myself."

Rose knits her eyebrows for a way to get out of this mess before Lily pats her shoulder. "If you're that worried about troubling me, then how about this? I help you get the books you need, and while you're researching you can tell me any stories that you know as payment."

The wind girl blinks at the deal, and can't seem to find anything wrong with accepting her offer. Keeping her close can keep her from getting discovered by the crew. Also, getting to know her doppelganger and finding out more about the comet is like killing two birds with one stone.

With that in mind, the impostor grins at the offer and extends a hand for her to shake. "You got yourself a deal. My name's Rose by the way."

Lily matches her smile as she shakes her hand. "I'm Lily, let's get going before anything happens." She cautiously opens the door and looks outside to see no one around, so she motions for her to follow her.

Rose keeps close to her as they head down the hall and through the large blue doors with a sign above them that shows that it's the library.

When they go inside, Rose marvels at the amazing collection in this large, empty, library.

Lily looks at her guest's astonished face and grins at her before she points to a far end of the library. "There's a secluded sitting area that no one really goes to. You can hide there while I get the books."

Rose nods in agreement as she runs off, while making sure that she's not noticed by anyone.

Meanwhile, Lily walks further into the archives for someone who can help her. The marine looks through each shelf until she hears books shuffling in the next aisle.

Lily scurries to the shelf to find a short, skinny, old woman on a ladder, and organizing the books. "Excuse me."

The elder stops what she's doing and looks down at the new patron. A wide grin spreads on her ruby lips once she recognizes the familiar face. "Well, if it isn't my favorite bookworm!"

Lily grins at the nickname as she steps back to let the old lady leap from the ladder and land on her feet in front of her. "I see you're as lively as ever Wanda."

The old lady lightly cackles at the comment as she looks up to the girl who's twice her height, then beckons for her to follow her. "Can't be relaxing with all this excitement going on. So, what kind of mythical creature do you want to research this time?"

Lily chuckles at the usual offer as she follows the librarian to her desk. "I'm not looking for myths this time. I'm looking for any archives that we have on incidents involving Hell's comet."

Wanda immediately stops from hearing the taboo name before she turns to the taller girl with a look of disdain. "And why would you be needing that?"

The cadet gets taken aback at the complete change of attitude, but in fear of Wanda calling her insane for explaining that she's helping a ghost, she makes up an excuse. "Some of the other officers heard the commander talking about Hell's comet being involved with the ghost ship. I'm hoping to see if this crew's disappearance was the first. Is this comet something bad?"

"It's very bad, it's something that you should never mess with! We don't have anything about that monstrosity here!" Wanda yells out as she looks around to make sure that they're alone.

Lily takes the hint from the fake scolding as she stays quiet while Wanda stands on her desk chair and grabs a giant book.

The sneaky elder waves her hand for her guest to approach her, which Lily obeys.

The librarian snickers at her friend's curiosity as she whispers to her. "Now listen, you gotta keep what you find about the incident quiet. You see, this comet really is dangerous, and a lot of people don't want to talk about it."

Lily nods in understanding as she watches her scramble through the index book, that holds the location of where every piece of information is stored in this library.

Wanda finishes scouting through her index, and on a separate sheet of paper writes down a list of books along with the indexes of where they can be found in the room. "These books should tell you all you need to know about the incident. I also threw in a geology journal about crystals. Trust me, you're gonna want to read it."

Lily happily grins at the help as she grabs the paper. "This is perfect! Thank you so-!"

She's cut off when the librarian whacks her on the head. "You know the rules, keep quiet!"

The cadet quickly nods as she goes off. "Right, sorry, and thank you!"

Wanda quietly sighs as she watches her run off. "I swear this girl's curiosity is something else."

She shakes her head with a small smile as she closes the index and goes back to her task.

Meanwhile, Rose managed to find herself a nice table in a corner of the room and took out a book to make herself look like she belongs here.

As she reads the devil fruit index, she can't help but smile at how things turned out for her. Not only for how she's so close to finding more answers about the comet, but also from becoming friends with her doppelganger. The marine may be naive, but all in all Rose can tell that she's a kind hearted girl.

Unaware to her, a light, warm, breeze flowed out of her body while she was reading, and managed to hit Lily just as she was going to join her with three books in her arms.

Lily tenses up at the warm wind, but immediately relaxes when she experiences the pleasant feeling of her troubles melting away from the breeze. She allows herself to enjoy the warmth for a few more seconds before she speaks up. "Is this wind you?"

Rose snaps out of her daze from the cadet's voice and cancels out her wind. "Sorry about that, when I feel strong emotions, I sometimes make a breeze without knowing."

Lily happily grins at the new discovery as she drops the books on the table and looks at her in excitement. "That's amazing, what emotion were you feeling?!"

Rose giggles at her curiosity as she closes her book. "It was probably happy. I honestly can't thank you enough for what you're doing for me."

Lily blinks at the gratitude before she puts her rifle on a chair, then goes to the bookshelf behind her. Once she grabs a book on supernatural myths, she sits across from her guest with a grin. "I should be thanking you for making tonight interesting. After you find some answers, can you tell me more about this ability?"

"Of course." Rose says before she grabs one of the piled books, and begins their long night together of research and storytelling.

* * *

Under the cover of night, just outside the base, Robin and Usopp keep themselves hidden on the top of a small cliff, where they can see the Merry in the middle of the water.

The archaeologist takes this chance to figure out the situation by sprouting hands onto the mast with ears attached to them.

"Man, why do we have to be guarding the ghost ship?"

The officer's friend couldn't agree with his disapproval more as he looks at the water. "Tell me about it, I don't know which rumor's worse. The crew disappearing through Hell's comet or dying because of cursed gold."

The other officer groans at the two choices. "I don't know, but in either case, I hope we don't share their fate by messing with their stuff."

He feels like they're being watched and turns around, but he finds nothing but a few pink petals on the deck. "Hey, where did these flowers come from?"

The other officer looks at the petals and shrugs it off. "Must've flown in from the trees."

"Y-yea, I guess so." He still can't shake the feeling that they were spied on, but he doesn't let it get in the way of his duties.

Meanwhile, Robin hums in interest as she opens her eyes and looks to the Merry. "It looks like they believe it's a ghost ship."

Usopp drops his jaw at the assumption before his shock turns into rage of them insulting their beloved ship. "A ghost ship?! How rude!"

He opens his mouth to yell out to the marines, but hands sprouted onto his body and covered his mouth before a single sound could be made.

"Don't give us away Long Nose-kun. This can actually give us an advantage."

Usopp can only nod before Robin releases her hold on him and looks to the ship. She begins to sprout hands onto the mast of the ship and reaches them towards the officers.

The poor men didn't know what was coming until they felt their shoulders tapped. The two of them nervously look over their shoulders and drop their jaws in fright of the sprouted hands. Before they can run, they find themselves being surrounded by dozens of hands sprouting out from every part of the ship they can see. "G-GHOSTS!"

As the screams fill the air, Usopp shudders at their fright and sees Robin grinning towards the ship. "What did you do to them?"

Robin giggles at the tenseness in his voice as she cancels her power. "I didn't kill them, I just scared them badly enough to knock them out."

He sweat drops at the blunt answer as the archaeologist looks to the ship curiously. "It's strange though. I can understand them pinning the rumor on the gold, but what's this about a Hell's comet?"

Usopp immediately freezes at the question involving Rose's research, but gets taken aback more by Robin not knowing. When he remembers how upset Rose was when she saw him, Nami, and Sanji react to her research in Alabasta, he can understand why she doesn't want to talk to the newest member about it yet.

As a way to make up for how he acted, the renowned liar chuckles at the question and turns away from the cliff. "I have no idea, but I wouldn't worry about it. You know how marines like to exaggerate. I mean they're calling our precious Merry a ghost ship for crying out loud! Should we really be wondering about comets right now? Let's get out of here before someone sees us."

Robin grows confused about his explanation, but she knows that he's right in that they can't waste time standing in the open. She reluctantly agrees to drop the matter as she travels under the dead of night with Usopp. However, just from seeing the sniper casually brushing off a subject, instead of normally being worried about it, she can tell that something's amiss and makes a mental note to look into it.

* * *

Hours have past and the sun begins to slowly rise and shine within the windows of the fortress' library. The only sound that's being made is the pages being flipped from the table Rose and Lily refused to move from.

Both of their tired eyes stay open as Lily reads her own book on vampires while Rose reads through the second book Lily gave her, which is the geology journal.

No matter how tired the pirate is getting, she refuses to stop after coming so far. Just from the first book on the incident, she's learned that the night is known as the 'spiriting night' for how the victims were spirited away from this world. The fruitless search for the missing people was led by Vice Admiral Tsuru for a year, until it was called off when the World Government learned that they're no longer in this world. Ever since that night, there were multiple other nights noted of when the comet showed up. From looking at the dates, Rose can tell that the comet arrives almost every eight years.

To avoid more 'casualties', as the World Government is calling the victims, the marines forces the civilians to stay indoors on the nights when the comet arrives with their doors and windows covered. From what Rose can tell, it's just another way for them to raise propaganda against the comet because they can't leave without a crystal.

She shakes her head from the fact, and rubs her forehead to give herself a break from reading half of the large journal. "Man, all this info is crazy..."

Lily chuckles as she stops her place in her book. "I'm surprised even ghosts get tired. Did you find anything in that book?"

Rose quietly sighs as she keeps her hand on her forehead. "Not yet, I'm sure some type of crystal is involved because of what happened in the spiriting night. But I'm not finding anything that fits the description of what those geologists looked into."

Lily nods in understanding of her frustration. "It must've been something really top secret for one of our divisions to be studying it."

She grins in reassurance as she looks at the book. "I wouldn't worry though, Wanda is the best librarian in the world. No matter what I'm looking for, the books that she refers me to always hold the answer, so these will have what you need."

Rose grins at the girl's confidence, but her smile fades when she sees that the sun has begun to rise, and reminds her that the time with Lily needs to stop now. No matter how much she doesn't want this to end, she knows that this friendship will only last until she sheds her disguise, so she wants to cause as little trouble for her as possible in the meantime.

Lily raises an eyebrow at the newly worried look on her friend's face and follows her gaze to the window. "Is everything alright? You're not one of those spirits that only come at night, are you?

The astronomer chuckles at her question before she shakes her head. "No, I'm not going to vanish in the sunlight. I feel like I should apologize though. It looks like I've kept you up all night."

Lily widens her eyes at the apology and hastily shoots it down. "Don't be silly, this has been a lot of fun! I didn't know that constellations could tell so many stories, so I should be thanking you!"

Rose giggles at the appreciation for the astronomy stories she gave her last night. "It was my pleasure. If you need to go to training, you can go. I can stay hidden while I work here."

The cadet tenses up at the mention of training when she remembers that she has close combat training today. She groans at the most hated form of fighting she has to deal with, but with all the craziness with the ghost ship, she might be able to avoid it if she stays here.

She grins at the plan as she looks to Rose. "Don't worry, I'm sure today's training is cancelled because of that ship. I feel like I can do more by helping you anyway."

Rose tilts her head at the claim. "And why's that?"

"If we can bring back your memories, then we can find out more about the evil crew that caught you."

The pirate stiffens up at the mention of her crew as Lily continues. "I'm sure those ghost pirates are still here because we have their ship. Once we know more about them, then we can use that to our advantage when we crush them."

The wind girl widens her eyes at the doppelganger's clenched fists and looks at her as calmly as possibly. "Lily, why exactly did you become a marine?"

Lily blinks at the random question before she answers nonchalantly. "Why else? To help people and destroy criminal scum."

Rose freezes at the answer and realizes that she has a hatred for outlaws, that's possibly worse than her own hatred for the World Government. She can't defend the pirates without revealing herself to be one, so she goes back to her book to hold herself back. "I see, I'd better get back to work then."

Lily blinks at her friend's retreat before she comes with an idea to look into exorcism for the ghost pirates. She takes her myth book and starts going back to the aisles. "I'll be right back, I might know of a way to fulfill our goal."

Rose can only nod as she watches her walk off from the corner of her eye. When she knows that she's alone, she breathes out in relief. _*I can't stay here anymore. I'll check these books out as Lily and find the others.*_

She starts collecting the three books that Lily gave her, before she accidentally yawns.

"It's been a while since I've seen you pull an all nighter."

Rose looks to see Wanda walking up to her with a cup of warm coffee, a dish with scrambled eggs and a scone, and utensils on the plate. "Eat this before you go to training. You're gonna need all the energy you can get."

The pirate happily accepts the generosity as she takes the breakfast from her. "Thank you."

The old woman nods, as she takes the books just before the door slams open. "WHERE IS SHE?!"

Lily freezes from her spot in the aisles and carefully looks over a shelf to see a high ranking marine officer storming in. _*Oh no, Lieutenant Noah!*_

She keeps herself hidden in the aisle as the middle-aged man walks past her aisle, and toward the spot where she was working with the ghost. _*Rose, get out of there!*_

Rose finishes her breakfast then pales in horror to see an angry, muscular, officer, with a red goatee and mustache to match the fiery red hair under his hat, storming towards her. What really surprises the wind girl though, is that this man has a grey metal right hand, showing from his marine jacket sleeve instead of a pale hand to match his left one.

Wanda however is unfazed by his intrusion as she goes to grab a bag and scowls at the officer. "Remember that you're in a library Lieutenant Noah."

Noah ignores the command as he approaches Rose. "I finally found you!"

The impostor rushes to stand in front of the red-haired man as she puts on a nervous smile and salutes him. "Good morning-!"

He cuts her off when he grabs her by the ear with his metal hand. "Don't think you can slip away from me today!"

The wind girl grows more confused by the minute as he's dragging her with him by the ear. _*What the fuck?!*_

She keeps up with his pace to ease the pain and sees Lily hiding in the aisles.

The doppelganger quietly mouths out an apology to her as she stays hidden from the angry marine.

 _*What the hell did she get me into?!*_ Rose gets tempted to fight the officer when Wanda runs after them with a small blue backpack.

"Wait!"

Noah stops, but he doesn't let go of his cadet as the librarian gives Rose the backpack. "These books were from the table you were reading on. You can give them back to me tonight. Good luck with close combat training."

 _*Close combat training?!*_ Rose widens her eyes at what's going on before the lieutenant drags her to the door.

"You'd better wait until tomorrow Wanda, I'm not letting her out of my sight today." Noah grumbles out as he refuses to give his catch any leeway.

"You got it!" Wanda says as she waves them off.

Lily drops her jaw at what she just witnessed and puts a hand over her mouth to hold back from laughing. _*Oh my god, when they realize that she's a ghost, they'll freak!*_

She contains her laughter to light giggles before she gets back to the task at hand by searching for books on how to exorcise the pirates, but keep her new friend around.

* * *

Rose grits her teeth at the weird situation of being dragged by the ear by a cyborg-like marine lieutenant, when she hears giggling. She moves her eyes to some of the nearby cadets as they talk to each other.

"Looks like Lily can't escape this time."

"Poor kid, even though she's great with swords and shooting, the lieutenant won't go easy on her."

"That's what she gets for being so lame at hand to hand combat."

Rose widens her eyes at the comments that can easily sum up that her copy can only fight with weapons. _*That explains why she went straight for the sword last night…*_

Her eyes glance around for a way out of the mess, before she grins at the tall man who's threatening to tear off her ear. "Excuse me sir, but may I use the bathroom before we head to training?"

Noah scoffs at the request as he refuses to let her go. "Nice try, but I'm not falling for that. You're going through it today."

He goes through the door to the training hall to see dozens of male and female cadets stretching to warm up.

Rose can't help but smile at how similar this looks to her martial arts club when Noah throws her forward.

The pirate stumbles to catch herself, and rubs her aching ear as she sees the lieutenant calling out to the unit. "ATTENTION!"

The entire unit stops what they're doing and rushes to stand before him. Rose barely has time to think as she joins them in saluting him.

Once Noah's satisfied, he looks to one of the cadets. "Private, what unit are you in?"

A tan, lanky man steps up. "I'm in the weapon's unit sir!"

"And what's the purpose of the weapon's unit?"

"To build skilled marines who are adept to all fighting arts from guns to ninja tools!"

He nods in satisfaction before he steps in front of Rose. "And you tell me, what would you do if you lost your weapon in the middle of fighting a pirate?"

Rose blinks at the question before she tries her best to answer like a marine. "I'd punch the shit out of them sir!"

Noah and every other officer are shell shocked at the crass answer, for not once have they heard a childish girl such as Lily curse.

Rose nervously looks around to realize that she completely messed up her answer. _*Dammit, I should've said KICKED the shit out of them!*_

Her mind races for a way to fix this when booming laughter erupts from the lieutenant.

When everyone sees the usually strict leader actually laughing, they allow themselves to laugh along with him until he relaxes.

Noah keeps a small smirk on his face as he looks down at Rose. "You finally gave me a decent answer."

Rose immediately relaxes her shoulders in not being caught yet, and keeps her saluting position.

The lieutenant doesn't end there as he continues his speech to the division. "As she said, when we lose our weapon, we need to rely on our fists as a last resort! It doesn't matter how good you are with a weapon, without basic martial arts skills you're as good as dead! I want everyone to give it your all in polishing your close combat skills today! Do you read me?!"

"SIR YES SIR!"

Everyone immediately goes off to train with newfound motivation. Rose stays in her spot as she surveys the room to find the soldiers are either doing muscle training or jumping into sparring matches.

She starts going to muscle training to avoid suspicion, but Noah stops her by grabbing the back of her shirt.

Rose stops and nervously turns around to see the lieutenant scowling at her. "Don't think your answer will get you out of sparring. You're not allowed to go to lunch until you win fifty matches. Not just participate, but win. Do you understand?"

While the wind girl knows that she has to act like someone who's reluctant to spar, she can't resist accepting the fun challenge as she salutes him with a large smile. "Sir, yes sir!"

Noah blinks at the cadet's eagerness as he watches her put her backpack to the side, where she can keep an eye on it at all times, then run off to the sparring mats. He raises an eyebrow at her enthusiasm, as he watches her approach a lanky man who's just as tall as she is.

The officer about to fight the pirate chuckles in satisfaction of having to face her as they get in a white circle, then gets in a stance. "Don't worry Lily, I won't be too hard on you."

Rose nods with a small smirk as she matches his stance with clenched fists. _*Damn, I can barely contain my excitement! I gotta make it act like I narrowly won-!*_

She snaps out of it when she side steps to dodge the man, then does a spin around back kick so hard to the solar plexus that he falls on his knees while he clenches his stomach and catches his breath.

The lieutenant and everyone who was watching the fight immediately drop their jaws at the quick victory.

Rose notices the shocked stares, and tries to act shy about it by scratching the back of her head. "Hehe, must've been a lucky kick..."

She extends a hand for her opponent, who finished catching his breath. "Sorry about the hard hit. Will you be ok?"

The marine nods with an excited grin as he takes her hand and gets back up. "Yea, that was great! How about two out of three?"

"You got it!" She happily grins in excitement as the two opponents get back in a stance and begin the second round of their match.

As the nearby officers watch the fight between the two marines, they can hardly believe that this girl is the weapons only fighter that they know. It even looks like she's holding herself back as she takes a few hits and returns them easily.

Noah doesn't know what happened to the cadet, but he will happily accept the improvement in contrast to how against hand to hand combat she was in the past. Now that he knows that she's not going to run, he continues with his duties by supervising the rest of the unit and keeping tabs on the progress that each cadet is making.

* * *

As Lily has her nose in an exorcism book in between the bookshelves, heavy footsteps begin to fill the air.

Lily looks out from her hiding spot in the aisles to see Lieutenant Drake storming to Wanda's desk with a team of five officers. _*What are they doing here?*_

Curiosity gets the better of the cadet as she watches the exchange between Drake and Wanda.

"Has anyone been here looking into Hell's comet recently?" Drake asks with Lily freezing at the question.

Wanda raises an eyebrow at the newly popular topic, but knows better than to break her code as a librarian. "Sorry, but that information is classified."

Drake grits his teeth at the woman's stubbornness. "We don't have time for these games. We have reason to believe that this has to do with the ghost ship!"

Wanda sighs at his anger as she looks to her index. "I can point you to where we hold the archives and you can set up surveillance. I doubt you'd find anything missing since this subject isn't popular."

He accepts the compromise as he allows her to lead him away from her desk. However, when he spots a brunette trying to leave from the corner of his eye he stops moving. "Hold it right there cadet!"

Lily tenses up at the order, but she knows that she's not in trouble because she doesn't have the books, so she turns to him and salutes him. "Yes sir!"

Drake walks up to her and narrows his eyes at the resemblance between the girl in front of him and the drawn poster of the wind pirate. "What's your name soldier?"

Lily blinks at the interrogation, but she doesn't have a problem with answering. "My name's Sarona Lily."

The rest of the team and Wanda join the confrontation.

The librarian is slightly shocked in how the cadet got out of training under Noah's watch, but she's more confused about Drake's confrontation.

Drake ignores the stares as he keeps questioning her. "What unit are you in?"

"I'm in the weapon's unit."

He raises an eyebrow at the answer. "Isn't that unit 18?"

Lily knits her eyebrows at the question. "No sir, if I remember right, that's the supply unit. If I may ask, what's this about?"

He takes out Rose's wanted poster from his pocket. "Just that we know that you're a Straw Hat pirate Wind Rider! Men, arrest her!"

The rest of the team surrounds her with swords pointed at her, and scares both Lily and Wanda.

Wanda is the first to speak in her defense. "Hold on here Lieutenant! I know this girl, she's been in this base for four months now!"

Lily timidly nods as she looks to the picture to see that the pirate has purple eyes and freckles. "Yea and I'm wearing contacts!"

Drake and his team look at Lily in confusion, then quickly become disgusted when they watch her poke her right eye with one finger to expertly take out a contact. She blinks away the irritation before she shows her right eye as green while her left one still has the purple contact. "See? I'm not some disgusting pirate!"

The lieutenant blinks at the weird contacts, and finds no reason to suspect this girl anymore now that Wanda has vouched for her. He scowls at the development before he sighs. "Very well, I apologize. You're dismissed."

"Thank you, sir." Lily puts her contact back onto her eye and shows Wanda her book. "May I take this exorcism book with me?"

Wanda can only nod as she watches her run away from the library.

Lily refuses to look back as she goes into the closet, that she spoke to Rose in, to recollect herself from the scary experience. _*I can't believe that happened! How could he think I was some-?*_

She stops her train of thought when she remembers reading the poster to see that the pirate's name is Rose. Her blood runs cold at thinking that her new friend could be a pirate, but she shakes her head to get rid of the assumption. _*No, that's not true! Rose is a ghost, she has the same color eyes as I do, and no freckles! She's too sweet to be some dirty pirate…*_

She frowns in guilt of having the ghost take her place in training, but freezes her stomach growls loud enough to echo in the room. "I'll go to the training room after I eat. If Rose is still there, then we'll switch and ask her to meet me here."

Lily nods to her plan as she heads out of the room and off to the dining hall.

Meanwhile, Drake storms the halls to go to his leader's office after he left his men to conduct surveillance in the library.

He manages to make it to the office to see Jonathan at this desk with a chess board.

Vice Admiral Jonathan grins at the intrusion as he beckons for him to come in. "Ah, lieutenant, you have perfect timing. We caught Roronoa Zoro."

Drake widens his eyes at the news before he approaches his desk. "That's great sir, but we have a problem."

Jonathan raises a thick eyebrow at the claim. "And what problem would that be?"

"My team and I were in the library when I saw a female cadet. She has a striking resemblance to Wind Rider, but Wanda confirmed that she's one of ours. It's possible that the pirate could be imitating her."

Jonathan hums in interest as he crosses his arms on the desk. "Do you know anything about the cadet?"

"Her name's Sarona Lily and she's in the weapon's unit. What's the schedule for them today?"

Jonathan strokes his chin before he thinks about the training schedule for the unit. "If I remember right, they have close combat training all day under Lieutenant Noah."

Drake immediately turns to leave when Jonathan calls out to him. "Hold on a second Drake."

The lieutenant stops at the command as Jonathan grins at him. "I believe it'll be wise for Noah to take care of this. I'll notify him of our situation. I would like for you to interrogate Roronoa for some answers."

Drake nods in understanding. "How would you like me to proceed?"

"I'll leave that up to you. Try to find anything you can on how they arrived here."

"Yes sir!" He salutes him before he walks off to begin his interrogation on the pirate.

Jonathan chuckles at the new development as he picks up a white knight chess piece. "Seems like our second catch will be here sooner than we think."

He puts the piece on the board and grabs his den den mushi to contact Noah. When the snail is answered, it's changed to a smiling snail with red facial hair to match the scruffy hair hiding under his cap. "Hello sir, what can I do for you?"

The commander raises an eyebrow at his usually stern lieutenant's happy mood before he responds to him. "Are you alone?"

"Yes sir, I stepped outside. How can I help you?"

Jonathan chuckles at his enthusiasm. "You seem to be in a good mood lieutenant."

"Hard to not be sir, one of my cadets has gone from being the worst at hand to hand combat to actually enjoying herself in the fight. She's finally understanding that while weapons are her main expertise, it's good to know all forms of combat."

The vice admiral starts to feel guilty for having to burst his bubble, but he knows that it has to be done. "This cadet wouldn't happen to be Sarona Lily would it?"

Noah blinks at the question before he answers. "Yea, how did you know?"

"Drake just informed me that he interrogated a girl who seems to be her."

The lieutenant widens his eyes at the news, as he realizes that one of the pirates has been under his nose this whole time. His happy mood immediately fades as he angrily scowls at the snail. "What are your orders?"

"Don't act just yet. I want you to keep an eye on her. This girl could actually be your cadet."

He scoffs at the leniency. "I doubt it, like I said Lily's the worst at fighting hand to hand."

He freezes when he comes up with an idea and smirks at him. "Sir, when I find the right moment, may I have permission to test my new arm?"

Jonathan nods to the idea. "Very well, but don't kill her. We need to interrogate her for answers."

"As you wish sir!"

The snail falls asleep after he finishes and chuckles at the development. "My, what a lovely fishing day this is turning out to be."

He grins in thought of how his plan is falling into place before he goes off to the dining hall. Once he's at the mess hall, he walks through the hall, and listens to the raving reviews of the new top chefs' cooking from the nearby officers.

His wife Jessica, the head chef of Navarone, happily works in the kitchen when she sees her husband heading to his private table from the window to the dining hall.

She looks to see her new chef working nonstop and makes an order. "Sanji, I need one of your best meals for table 8."

Sanji salutes her with a bright smile and hearts in his eyes. "As you wish my sweet Jessica!"

He works at lightning speed with ingredients flying in the air and catching the attention of everyone in the room.

Luffy, who snuck into the kitchen with the chef practically drools from just the tasty aroma alone as he and the marine chefs watch the show.

Sanji smiles in pride of his work as he applies the finishing touches to the dish and reveals it to the audience. "Here you are."

The crowd gapes at the amazing looking meal when Luffy goes to grab it. "I'll take it to the table!"

"If you eat any of it then you won't get any meals!" Jessica calls out, but the pirate in disguise barely listens as he runs off into the dining room.

Sanji get back to his work along with the rest of the staff before he turns to the closest chef. "This guy must be really important for Jessica to be paying attention."

The chef chuckles at the assumption as he watches Jessica working hard than before. "She's always like this when her husband comes in for a meal."

The pirate in disguise widens his eyes in shock that the beautiful woman is already married. "What?! Jessica is married?!"

He nods as he works with his head down to avoid Jessica catching them chatting. "Yup, and not just anyone could win her heart either. He's the commander of Navarone."

Sanji drops his jaw at what he said and stops cooking. "The commander?! Then that means..."

He looks in horror at the door to the dining hall and stops cooking to go after his captain.

He rushes past the dining marines eating and barely notices the girl with her head in an exorcism book as she's eating at her own table.

Lily blinks at the rushing blond man going towards the private dining room for high level officers and shrugs it off. Instead of worrying about strange chefs, she finishes the amazing meal and goes to put her empty dish on the cleaning rack. _*It's too bad cadets can't take meals out of here. Oh well, I'd better get Rose out of there.*_

She grins at the looks on her unit's faces when they find out that she switched with a ghost and leaves the dining hall.

She gets back to the book as she walks but stops, when she suddenly hears crashes from the dining hall!

The marine runs back to make sure nothing serious happened, when she sees a crowd of hundreds of marines going into the dining hall. Before she can leave though, two boys dressed as marine cooks storm out of the room and run in her direction.

The one with dark hair immediately notices the cadet and happily smiles at her. "There you are Rose!"

Lily's purple eyes widen at the name when Luffy stretches his arm towards her. "What the-?!"

She yelps in fear as the captain's arm loops around the girl's thin waist. Before Lily can react, she gets pulled to him so fast that she drops her book and lands on his shoulder in a matter of seconds.

The marine looks around in horror to see that she's being kidnapped, and tries to struggle to get down but he won't let her go. "Put me down! Who the heck are you?!"

Luffy raises an eyebrow at her distress, but he doesn't put her down. "What are you scared about? It's just us!"

"Idiot, she's scared because she doesn't recognize us! And I keep telling you to carry her like a lady!" Sanji says as he takes off the marine disguise as he runs to reveal his three piece suit. "There's no need to fear Rose-chan, see? We were just in disguise."

Lily becomes more frightened by the minute when she realizes that these men aren't marines at all. However, her face doesn't show it as she stops resisting, and gives the chef a grin. "Oh, glad you guys are ok."

Sanji smiles back at her and doesn't see through her act at all.

Luffy however, looks back at the girl in confusion, but can't see her face so he doesn't know that she's not blushing in his hold. He still thinks something is off though, because he would usually feel happier with having Rose close to him. But, he doesn't feel any different from when he was separated from the wind girl to now as he has this marine on his shoulder.

He doesn't bother with it right now, because he knows that the others are waiting, so he looks ahead as he keeps running.

When Lily sees that they don't know that they took the wrong girl yet, she grins in relief. From what she can tell from Drake's interrogation, a pirate crew truly did invade Navarone with one of them looking exactly like her. She doesn't want to believe that her ghost friend is this Wind Rider, but she won't stop this chance from being wasted.

As much as she hates to act so underhanded, if it's to stop this crew from hurting others then she'll gladly play the part of the pirate to gain their trust and stop them when the time is right. She happily grins at her simple plan as she clenches her fists in determination. _*These pirates won't know what hit them!*_

TO BE CONTINUED

* * *

 **A/N: Hey guys, I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it. I gotta hand it to those of you who wear contacts those things are tough to get on and off.**

 **I would also like to give a thanks to my friend Zweig for helping me come up with Lieutenant Noah. I got some good ideas for this one but until they come to life stay awesome. ;)**


	36. Chapter 36

Deep within the caverns of the cliff, where Navarone holds their prisoners, Lieutenant Drake is growing more furious by the minute as his prisoner refuses to give him the information he desires.

"For the last time, tell me how your crew got here!" Drake demands as he rubs both his fists on the opposite sides of Zoro's head as hard as he can.

The swordsman groans at the annoying technique, and stays seated on the floor in front of the marine. With his hands cuffed behind his back and his swords locked in a different prison cell, he can't do a lot without making his situation worse, so he only stares up at the man in irritation. "Are you hard of hearing or something? I already told you how our crew got here."

Drake growls at the unbelievable tale as he stops giving him a noogie and glares down at him. "You expect us to believe that your ship fell from the sky, thanks to an octopus balloon?"

Zoro shrugs his shoulders with a small smirk as he leans his back against the rock wall behind him. "Think what you want, but it won't change the truth."

Drake clenches his fists as tight as possible before he decides to change his tactic. "You know, you don't need to protect them anymore."

Zoro loses his smile at the statement and furrows his eyebrows. "What are you talking about?"

"The taboo user studying hell's comet. You made up this pathetic excuse to protect them, right? I hate to break it to you, but that pirate is long gone."

Zoro is vaguely familiar with Rose's research in that he knows that it's a taboo about other worlds, but she never got into detail about it with any of them. He saw her sneeze off the ship, so he knows that this marine is lying to him. However, he doesn't need to tell that to the guard, so he plays along by narrowing his eyes at the man defiantly. "How do you know?"

Drake begins to smirk, when he feels like he's making progress, and kneels down to be at his eye level. "We found the crystal, that's still holding the comet's power, in your ship's bathroom. You ship wound up here because the astronomer's experiment went wrong, am I right? If you give me full detail about who the taboo user is, and how your ship wound up at our base, I'll talk to the commander about going easy on you."

The swordsman remains frozen in place when he remembers the weird glowing items that Rose freaked out about in the bathroom just before the ship fell. With the way that those items vanished, he now knows that Rose was using those gems to experiment with the comet's power. What he doesn't understand though is why did she keep this a secret from him and the others? If she had been more careless, it could've been the ship, along with the crew that disappeared instead.

"Well Roronoa, what's your answer?"

Zoro snaps out of his trance when he remembers his situation, then smirks at Drake as he un-crosses his legs. "You know something? You talk too much."

Drake looks at him in confusion before Zoro kicks him straight in the gut so hard that it sends him flying backwards until his back hits the sea stone bars behind him.

"Lieutenant Drake!" The seven men, who are guarding the outside of Zoro's cell, call out to their leader worriedly as they go to unlock the door.

However, Drake doesn't care as he gets up and glares at the smug pirate. "Why you!"

"Sir, we have a report of a strange man, with a long nose, at the docks where the pirate ship is!" Another marine calls out as he runs to the scene.

Drake stops himself from beating the crap out of Zoro thanks to the news, and turns to the rest of his men. "Don't let this man out of your sight until I return with the next prisoner!"

"Yes sir!" The small squadron salutes their leader as they watch him leave the cell, then one of them immediately locks the door as if Zoro could easily escape.

Zoro scowls at how the men are just staring at him while they stand guard of his cell, before he relaxes against the wall. He knows that he can't do anything in this cell, so until Luffy causes some chaos he's going to let himself catch up on some shut eye.

* * *

As soon as Luffy and Sanji know they're safe in an empty hall, they stop running to catch their breaths. Luffy sets Lilly down to get his disguise off while the marine steps back to get a better view of the pirates.

She's never seen the chef in any of the posters, but one look at Luffy's hat and she immediately recognizes the captain from his poster. _*This guy has a hundred million beli bounty?!*_

Luffy looks to the brunette and sees the slightly surprised look on her face. "What's the matter?"

The marine quickly looks away to glance past the corner as if she's on the lookout. "I'm just worried about how we're getting out of here. What's the plan?"

Luffy hesitates to answer, because he still feels that something's off with her.

However, Sanji doesn't think anything's wrong with the fake pirate as he looks out the window. "We need to get moss head out of prison and find Nami and Robin."

Luffy finally looks away from Lily when he remembers that he found out Zoro's been caught by the Vice Admiral and starts to run in a random direction. "ZOR- HEY!"

Sanji stops him from running off by grabbing him by the back of his shirt. "Shut up already! We don't know where to look!"

Lily widens her eyes when she realizes that guards will be surrounding their imprisoned crew mate, so helping the pirates go there will be the best way to trap them. "I know where to go!"

The boys look at her in confusion as she looks through the window and points to metal building that's built on a cliff. "I read through the base's blueprints. They keep their prisoners locked up in there. We should find the others to come up with a plan to rescue him."

"There's no time, we gotta go!" Luffy says as he runs off without them.

"You should let Rose-chan lead you idiot!" Sanji says as he follows him.

Lily sweat drops at the weird pirates before she goes after them. She lightly pants from running fast enough to catch up to them, and points to the end of the hall. "We need to make a left to get to the stairs. Any idea where the others are?"

"Not a clue." Luffy bluntly says as they take the left turn and keep running.

The marine couldn't believe this captain's simple nature as she looks around for the quickest path. "Then what are we going to do when we break moss head out?"

Luffy looks to the imposter in confusion, for Rose has never called Zoro 'moss head' before. "What are you talking about? You should know, we're gonna find the others, find Merry and get out of here."

"Oh, right!" Lily looks ahead to avoid his stare that's making her more uncomfortable with the situation. Still, his answers are just confusing her more by the minute. If this man is really the hundred million bounty pirate, then wouldn't he be more menacing?

Also, with him not knowing where his crew is, she has no idea on what they're trying to accomplish in this base. Even though more questions are growing in her mind, she can feel Luffy's eyes still on her so she keeps her mouth shut to avoid suspicion.

Sanji, who's running in the back, stares at the two crew mates in confusion. Not so much at the cute girl, as he is at Luffy, because his captain is just staring at Rose while he runs. With a closer look, he can see that Luffy's scowling with his forehead getting red, like he's thinking hard on something but can't figure it out. He starts getting uncomfortable with the weird look Luffy's making, so runs in between his crew mates. "Quit staring at her! You're weirding us out!"

Luffy stops thinking about why Rose is acting so strange and frowns at Sanji. "Rose is the one weirding me out!"

"What?!" Lily turns to him in shock, and starts believing that she underestimated this man.

Sanji however, takes it as an insult as he kicks Luffy on the back of the head. "Rose-chan isn't weird you idiot!"

The marine blinks at how the pirate didn't hesitate to hit his captain as she watches Luffy grumble as he rubs his head.

Sanji ignores his captain as he gives the brunette a caring smile. "Don't worry Rose-chan, if he bothers you again, I'll set him straight."

The brunette only nods with a smile, to keep her facade, as she looks to the stairs up ahead. "T-thanks, I'll keep that in mind. Let's just keep going."

She brings them down the stairs, and continues to lead them through the base while understanding these pirates less by the minute.

* * *

The sounds of punches and kicks fill the air in the weapon unit's training hall as the cadets give it their all in training. At this point no one is participating with muscle training for the soldiers are either sparring or taking a break.

Rose is participating in the former and having the time of her life in her natural habitat. Ever since she's been in this world, she's either had to fight with her powers or with a sword to survive. While she definitely enjoys those kinds of battles, she loves the nostalgic adrenaline that she gets from fighting hand to hand combat, like when she fought both in and out of her High School fight club. The only true difference between the past and now, is that the opponents aren't afraid to fight her, but are welcoming the challenge she's giving them.

She couldn't peel off the gleeful smile she's wearing even if she tried as she gives a double kick to the female officer, that she's fighting with for her 49th victory.

The curvy, teenage, marine with her straight blonde hair in a ponytail, blocks the kick with her knee and throws a roundhouse kick at her to give her some distance. The cadet keeps her narrow brown eyes on Rose as she throws a barrage of punches at her. "What's going on with you, Lily?"

Rose immediately recognizes the voice to be the one her doppelganger was speaking to last night, and dodges her punches. To avoid causing an argument with Lily and her friend later, the wind girl feigns a look of confusion as she matches her pace to return her punches, then throws a step behind side kick. "What are you talking about?"

The girl grits her teeth as she dodges the kick and throws another punch. "Don't give me that! You haven't lost once today!"

Rose tilts her torso to the side to avoid the blow, then grabs her wrist with one hand to pull her forward before she turns her other hand into a fist and lightly taps her nose with it.

The marine drops her jaw at the gentle hit, because if her opponent was serious, she would've received a broken nose.

While she was distracted, Rose turns around and with the arm she's still holding, flips her over her shoulder. However, she keeps her other hand on her back to make sure that she doesn't get hurt from the fall.

The marine is speechless at the strong flip as Rose lets go of her opponent and gives her a shy smile. "Hehe, sorry, I didn't mean to worry you. Lieutenant Noah said that I couldn't leave until I won fifty matches. I wanted to get them done quick so I can go see the ghost ship."

The blonde didn't know what to say about the explanation that sounded completely in character with Lily's personality. When she saw 'Lily' fighting like a totally different person, she was worried that something bad happened to her friend. Now that she knows that it's just because of new motivations, she snorts in amusement. "So you're finally getting serious because of a ghost ship?! You're nuts Lily!"

She laughs at her friend's antics with Rose laughing along with her.

As both girls are laughing, neither of them are aware that the lieutenant has been watching them the whole time. Ever since Vice Admiral Jonathan found out that he accidentally dragged a pirate into his training session, he kept an eye on the girl to study her moves.

He was impressed with the amount of control that the brunette had in all of her matches. Even though she's trying to play the part of a marine, she could still injure her opponents with the openings that she used. However, she only hits hard enough to give her the win.

The marine finds it a shame that such a good fighter chose the wrong side of the law, but the choices were her own. He needs to capture her or he can't face his subordinates proudly. He takes off his marine coat to reveal his short sleeve shirt that's showing off this muscular human arm and the metal arm that's all the way up to his shoulder.

He looks down at the new right arm, that's been his replacement for a month since his fight with a powerful pirate destroyed his original one. When the World Government gave him this new limb, they also implanted prototype features for the weapons expert to test for them. While he's mastered how to use them, he's yet to test his cyborg abilities in real combat. Until today…

Rose doesn't notice the danger that she's about to get in as she wipes the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. She starts going to her sweaty cheeks, but stops when she remembers the makeup that's covering her freckles. _*Crap, is this waterproof?*_

She keeps her hands away from her face before she turns to get to her backpack, that's been sitting on the sidelines this whole time.

Her former opponent touches her shoulder to stop her. "What's the matter Lily? I thought you were eager to finish."

The impostor awkwardly chuckles before she turns to her. "I am, I just need to-"

"ATTENTION!"

The cadets stop what they're doing at the sound of Noah's voice, and rush to stand in front of their leader in a salute position. Rose doesn't hesitate to join them as she salutes the lieutenant.

Once Noah sees that everyone's in line, he lifts his metal arm to them. "I know you've all been curious about this arm. Since you've all done well with today's training, I'm going to demonstrate the features to you."

Almost entire unit widens their eyes at the announcement, because not once have they seen him use his cyborg arm except to whack them for discipline. While the unit can barely contain their excitement about the news, the pirate has a bad feeling about this.

A smirk begins to grow on Noah's face as he continues. "In order to fully demonstrate my arm, I'm going to have an exhibition match."

The rest of the marines almost gasped at the news before a few of them begin to whisper.

"He's serious?!"

"I've never seen him fight before!"

"I heard he's strong enough to take on devil fruit users! I can't wait to see him in action!"

Rose widens her eyes at the quiet gossip, but stays silent as she watches him looking through the crowd like he's searching for the right opponent.

When Noah's dark eyes meet Rose's contact covered eyes, he stops moving. "Sarona Lily, I would like you to be my opponent."

The rest of the marines were taken aback by this and look at her with a mix of excitement and envy.

Rose looks around and realizes that her doppelganger's surname is Sarona, and that the lieutenant just challenged her to a fight. _*Either this is luck or he's on to me…*_

While she knows that she'll be exposed regardless of what she does in this situation, she can't help to grow excited at the chance to fight a high ranking officer, so she accepts the challenge. "Sounds good to me sir! Will I be allowed to use weapons for this?"

"Of course, it wouldn't be fair to make you fight me otherwise. This is an all-out fight, so choose whatever you want from the rack." He points to the wall behind them that shows a weapons rack that holds all kinds of swords, kunais, and various other kinds of weapons, but no guns.

Rose happily grins at the chance to get a new sword as she runs to the rack to choose her weapons. While the rest of the unit is getting to the side, Noah stops two of his best men. "I want you both to watch from the door. No matter what happens, don't move from that spot."

"Yes sir!" The men rush to the door without hesitation to stand guard.

Rose looks over her shoulder to see the two new guards and confirms her suspicions that Noah knows the truth about her. She looks around the windowless room, and sees that the best way to escape is either through the door or up in the vents. She knows that she can power through those two guards with her wind, but she wants to test herself.

She wants to see how long she can last in a fight without immediately rushing to her powers, and polish her combat skills. With that in mind, she takes a black katana sheath, that's longer than what she's used to, and pulls out the weapon from the container to examine the silver blade. She lifts it to test the weight and grins at the weight, that's heavier than her old sword but still manageable.

She puts the sword back in the sheath, and turns to get to the match, but stops when her eyes spot the various ninja tools hanging next to the swords. Her eyes begin to beam at the chance to try new techniques as she goes over to them.

The rest of the cadets take a seat at the benches in anticipation of an epic battle from their leader and comrade. The blonde girl that Rose just fought looks to the weapon rack to see Rose surveying her choices like a kid in a candy store.

When the marine looks to the mat to see Noah tinkering with his arm to make sure that all of his features are ready, she can't help but be nervous for her friend. She turns to the lanky boy that Rose first fought and starts speaking to him. "Is it just me Luther, or is the Lieutenant being harsher with Lily than usual?"

The tan boy looks to where the impostor is before he sighs. "I'm not sure Marta. I'm still trying to wrap my head around what's going on with Lily. I mean you know she's always been a good fighter, at least with weapons, but she's never been this much of a…"

He trails off to find the right word for her odd behavior before he comes up with one. "Brawler... It's like she's getting drunk on the adrenaline from the fights and liking it…"

Marta slowly nods because she understands what he means, and doesn't alleviate any of the worries that she has for her friend.

The pirate however, isn't nervous at all about the opportunity as she approaches the mat with the only weapon revealed to the audience is the sword on her belt.

Noah keeps his smirk on the pirate as he stands at least a foot taller than his opponent. "Are you ready _Lily?_ "

The crowd becomes confused as to why he spoke their comrade's name almost sarcastically. However, the pirate doesn't bother with it as she gets in a stance, a few feet away from him. "Ready when you are _sir._ "

The audience widen their eyes at the mirrored tone, before they watch Noah smirk at her and clench his metal hand into a fist.

Before the audience had time to blink, their leader immediately threw a punch with his metal arm, and the arm releases the hand like a grappling hook, with a thick chain connecting the hand with the forearm.

Rose runs to the right to avoid the hit, and widens her eyes to see him retract the arm back slightly, only so that he can release it again and whip the chain around for the hand to go after her. She ducks to avoid the hit, then grabs a kunai from her boot to stab the chain link to the floor. The chain didn't break, but it's now pinned to the thick mat.

As Noah struggles to pull the chain off the floor, Rose runs to him with her fist ready. She jumps at him to punch him in the face, but Noah grabs her arm with his human hand and flips her. She groans as she lands on her back, but rolls to avoid the drop kick that was about to hit.

She jumps up and gives him tornado kick, but he steps back to dodge and gives her a roundhouse kick.

She blocks the kick with her arm then gives him a double kick to the stomach. He stumbles back from the hard kick when Rose gives him a roundhouse kick high enough to kick him in the nose.

The cadets widen their eyes at how their comrade is faring well in the fight while barely using her weapons. The lieutenant however, grew annoyed as he stumbles back from the hard hit until his metal arm reaches the limit of the chain. Rose takes this chance to punch him in the stomach, but when she throws another roundhouse kick, he grabs her leg and throws her across the room.

Rose holds herself back from using her wind to catch herself as she rolls on the mat until she stops on her stomach. She groans at the landing as she gets up to see Noah going to the kunai on the floor to free himself and retracts his hand back to his arm.

The wind girl doesn't give him a lot of time to recover as she unsheathes her sword, charges at the man with the back of her blade, and goes to strike him.

As soon as the attack was about to hit, a blade emerges from the back of Noah's hand and blocks the blow!

 _*Holy shit, I'm fighting Edward Elric!*_ Rose almost giggles in excitement of the new development as their fight switches from hand to hand combat to a sword fight.

Noah keeps his regular arm behind his back to keep it from getting in the way as the two warriors fill the air with the sounds of their swords colliding.

The audience couldn't take their eyes off the fight even if they wanted to because of how in sync the warriors are. Where one of them goes to attack the other is ready to block and strike without missing a single step.

The two sides clash their weapons at the same time with neither of them backing down and struggle to push the other off.

Noah looks closely at her weapon and realizes that she's been using the blunt side of the blade this whole time, so he speaks to her in a whisper. "Either you're toying with me or have no idea how to use that weapon, pirate."

Rose clicks her tongue as she matches his quiet tone. "What gave me away?"

He kicks her in the gut to push her back, and strikes, but she blocks and gives him a kick that he jumps back from to dodge.

He charges at her with his sword and keeps trying to slash her as she blocks his blows. "Besides the fact that your fighting style is completely different from my subordinate's, the real Lily was interrogated by my colleagues."

She furrows her eyebrows in anger at herself for causing trouble for her doppelganger as they manage to hit each other at the same time.

Noah receives a hard hit on his side from her sword, but Rose receives a horizontal cut an inch under her right eye.

However, when the blade made contact on the wind girl's skin, she instantly felt weak while she stumbled away from her opponent. She stops a few feet from the marine as she remembered feeling that way once when she was treated as Eneru's hostage in Skypiea. _*Crap, his sword has a sea stone tip…*_

Rose mutters a curse as she glares at her opponent, who is clenching his side from her hit. Luckily, she no longer feels weak as she gives herself some more distance and wipes the blood, that's seeping from the cut on her cheek, with the back of her hand. When she wipes off the blood though, the makeup that's been covering her freckles comes off with it.

When the cadets see freckles on the brunette's cheek just under the cut, they begin to grow curious as they whisper to one another.

"Did she always have freckles?"

"I know she uses makeup to make them sometimes. Maybe she wanted to cover them?"

Marta remembers talking to Lily about the fake freckles she made last night, but it wouldn't make sense for her to cover them up instead of washing them off. "Something's not right..."

Noah notices his unit's muttering to one another and knows that if this goes on any further, it'll cause more problems. He decides that this match is over as the blade retracts itself and a machine gun barrel pops out of his wrist.

The cadets widen their eyes at the new feature as they watch him aim the machine gun at Rose. Before they can voice their concerns though, Noah speaks out to them.

"Everyone, this girl is not Sarona Lily! She's a pirate in disguise! Lily's safe, Drake made sure the real one wasn't arrested!"

The rest of the unit were completely taken aback by the announcement, but when they think back on how she fought so well with them in hand to hand, this makes perfect sense.

Rose doesn't say anything in her defense as she sheathes her sword. Instead, the impostor puts on a smirk as she takes off her blue neck scarf to wipe off the rest of the makeup, along with the new blood seeping from her cut. Once she's confident that the makeup is off, except for the green contacts, she tosses the scarf then turns to face her audience. "Your leader is telling the truth! My name is Rose, and I'm a proud member of the Straw Hat pirates!"

The unit grows furious at how she easily deceived them and get up to block the doorway.

Noah however, becomes suspicious on what the girl's planning before he calls out to two subordinates. "Marta and Luther, cuff her!"

The two officers don't hesitate in the order as they start approaching her, but stop when Rose laughs in amusement.

The unit looks at the crazy girl in confusion as she smirks at them. "Before you guys arrest me, let me give you some advice as thanks for the fun fights. When you're battling a pirate, you need to expect the unexpected. Before or even during the fight, try to learn all you can about their strengths, their weaknesses, but most importantly..."

The girl starts floating on a gust of wind, which causes every marine in the room to drop their jaws. "Try to find out if they have a devil fruit!"

Noah shoots at the wind girl, but instead of bullets, small green energy blasts are shot from his machine gun. She keeps flying up to avoid the blasts, and create a gust of wind for her backpack.

Some of the marines try to grab it, but they weren't quick enough to retrieve it.

Rose continues to fly around the high ceiling to avoid the shots, while she grabs her backpack and straps it on.

The rest of the unit goes to grab the kunai, throwing stars, and spears that all have sea stone tips on them from the weapon rack. Rose widens her eyes at the projectile weapons that are being thrown at her from twenty feet below her before she creates a wind barrier to block the weapons and let them fall.

Noah keeps shooting at the ceiling, regardless of the damage, until he hears screaming from the door. He and the others stop and look in horror to see that the two men Noah placed at the door are being lifted in their own wind.

"Sorry about this, but I need to go." Rose throws the men at their leader, who catches them in both arms, and makes him fall to the floor. Rose turns her arms into wind to get the marines flying to the wall to keep them distracted while she flies out the door.

As the cadets are recovering from the crazy fight, Noah growls in anger of how he underestimated his prey. He immediately gets up and runs to the door to find no signs of the wind girl.

"DAMMIT!" He punches a hole in the wall with his metal arm before he turns to the unit. "We need to split up and go after her! Arm yourselves with sea stone weapons, and contact me on a baby den den mushi once you've spotted her!"

"SIR, YES SIR!" The cadets rush to do as they're told while their leader runs off on his own. He grabs his blue baby den den mushi from his pocket and contacts Jonathan.

The small snail suddenly grows a thick black mustache, just like the one Jonathan wears, and grins at the lieutenant. "Hello Noah, how's your progress?"

Noah lowers his head in shame before he answers him. "I'm sorry sir, I underestimated her. She used her devil fruit to escape me and my unit. I managed to cut her cheek, so we can tell her apart from Lily now. By the way, where is she?"

Jonathan widens his eyes at the question because he has no idea where she is. "I'm not sure. When Drake told me about the interrogation he had with her, she ran off once she was cleared of suspicion."

Noah widens his eyes at this and begins to grow worried for his subordinate. After all, he was easily able to mix the pirate with Lily. If she made contact with the rest of the crew, they could also mistake her for one of their own…

"I know what you're thinking Noah and I wouldn't worry." Noah snaps out of it to his commander's voice to see the snail smiling at him. "If the pirates did mistake Lily for their crew mate, they won't harm her. If I'm right, she's probably leading them to where our prison is right now."

Noah furrows his eyebrows at the explanation as he stops running. "What makes you think they would let her bring them there?"

"So they can try rescuing the crew mates we captured. I already have Drake and his men setting up a trap there. I'll notify them that Lily will be leading them."

Noah furrows his eyebrows of the situation before he scowls at the leader. "Sir, I'd like to go there as well. I already have my unit searching the base for the wind pirate. I want to make sure Lily doesn't get dragged into any more of this chaos."

Jonathan grins at how his lieutenant truly cares for his unit's wellbeing and nods in agreement. "I understand, get to the prison and stand guard."

"Thank you sir!" He hangs up on his leader and puts the snail in his pocket before he runs off to the brig.

Meanwhile, Rose catches her breath in an empty bathroom in the floor below the training room. Once she's recovered a little, she chuckles to herself from the crazy stunt she pulled. _*Man, the look on their faces was priceless! Good thing my bounty's not that big yet or I wouldn't have pulled it off!*_

She chuckles to herself before she looks in the wall mirror to see that all of the cover up is completely removed. She touches the new cut on her cheek and giggles at how similar it looks to the scar on Luffy's face. "It doesn't look like it'll leave the same scar, but I'll have doc check when we get out of here."

She looks to her eyes, that still have the green color contacts on them, and gently pulls the contacts off of each eye. She groans at the pain from touching them before she blinks away the irritation. Once she opens them again, her eyes return to their natural purple color.

"Where is she?!"

"That wind bitch has gotta be here somewhere!"

Rose snaps out of it from the soldiers' voices in the hall when she hears the locked door knob starting to jiggle.

The two men at the opposite side of the door immediately suspect that the fake marine is inside, so they work together to break down the door. Once they're inside, they only find an empty room with an open wind.

One of the men look outside, but he couldn't find any signs of their target. He doesn't notice at all that right below the window, his prey is floating below it to hide. He still doesn't notice as he turns to his comrade. "She's not here, let's go!"

He leaves the room with his friend without not once spotting the girl that was under his nose.

When she knows that they're gone, she sighs in relief before she puts the green contacts that are in her hands in her pocket. She doesn't move from her spot as she looks around the island. "If I remember right, Luffy and Sanji should've left the kitchen and are…"

She trails off when she spots a familiar straw hat in the distance. She flies behind a nearby boulder, and sees Luffy and Sanji scaling down a cliff to get to the path that leads to the cliffside building. However, when she sees a familiar marine clinging to Luffy's back like a koala, she drops her jaw in horror. _*ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! WHY DIDN'T THE MARINES KEEP LILY CLOSE AFTER THEY INTERROGATED HER?!*_

The wind girl scrambles her hair in frustration, because if she goes there while her doppelganger is with them then a whole new can of worms will be opened!

She groans to herself before she decides that the best course of action would be to watch from afar and wait for the right moment to switch back with Lily. It's not the best plan, but it's all that she can think up at the moment, so she stays in her hiding spot to watch over her friends.

* * *

Minutes before having to scale the outside cliff, Lily is struggling to keep her sanity from travelling with the weirdest criminals that she's ever met. That's actually saying a lot too, because of all the weird and evil outlaws that she's seen in Water Seven.

For what felt like hours she's tried to lead Luffy and Sanji to the base without getting caught by her comrades and mistaken for one of them again. However, with the captain's loud shouting and the chef's obnoxious flirting, they had to run for their lives at least three times.

This time not being any different as she runs with Luffy and Sanji to avoid behind arrested by the angry mob of marines after them.

The brunette looks back in fear to see that some members of her unit are in the crowd, and are mad as hell. She gulps at the scary glares that are aimed directly at her before she looks away. _*They must've found out that Rose wasn't me! But why aren't they saying anything?!*_

She keeps looking ahead for a way out of this mess when they turn a corner.

As soon as they're about to go past a door, Luffy grabs her and Sanji by the arm, drags them inside, and jumps out the window with them.

Lily looks down at the tremendously long height in terror, for she has a fear of heights, so she closes her eyes and clings onto the captain's back for dear life.

Luffy doesn't care about Lily's clinging, as he grabs onto the rock wall to stop them from falling.

Sanji grabs onto the rock to get off his captain, then glares at him. "Have you lost your mind?! You could've killed us!"

Luffy awkwardly chuckles as he looks down to see that they have about thirty feet to climb down to. "Sorry, but this is easier."

He looks back to see Lily still holding onto him with her eyes closed. "Hey, you ok?"

Lily forces herself to open her eyes and nervously nods. "Y-yea, I'm fine. What's the plan now captain?"

Luffy tilts his head in confusion, because even though they're so close her face isn't getting red. Before he can voice his concerns, Sanji speaks up.

"We need to get down from here. That building is where the prison is right Rose-chan?" He points to the tiny grey building, about half a mile from them with the marine nervously nodding.

"Y-yea, we need to get there, but we're too open out here. We should go inside and try going from there."

"No way, it's faster this way!" Luffy says as he keeps facing the impostor. "Can you get us flying there? It'll be a lot faster with your wind."

Lily knits her eyebrows at the demand, because she has no idea what he's talking about. To keep her cover from getting blown, she covers her fear with a look of anger as she grabs onto the cliffside and gets off of Luffy. "Forget it!"

The boys both look at her in confusion as she starts climbing down with trembling arms and legs while her eyes stay glued to the rocks, so she can keep herself from getting too scared. "I'm more than just an airbag! We'd be even more noticeable if we fly anyway, so we should-!"

She stops talking when her right foot slips, and she loses her balance. The poor girl stares at the boys in horror as she starts falling with the boys calling out to her.

The marine doesn't even scream, because of how petrified she is and only stares at the sky. _*This is it, I'm going to die here… I'm sorry-*_

She snaps out of it when she feels a strong breeze under her until she's no longer falling and looks down to find herself floating on a gust of wind. "W-what?"

She scans the area for her savior, but couldn't find anyone. She keeps searching until she nearly loses her balance, but the gust keeps her from falling as she keeps tilting until she finally manages to stand herself upright.

Luffy grins in relief that she's ok as he stretches his arms down until he's at her level. "You almost scared me there Rose."

"We shouldn't relax Luffy. We have a problem." Sanji says as he climbs down to them.

Lily grows nervous about what he means while Luffy looks at him in confusion. "We do?"

"Of course we do. Rose-chan thinks that we only like her for her devil fruit."

Luffy widens his eyes at this when he remembers her comment and narrows his eyes at the girl. "What, that's crazy! We like you for tons of more stuff than that!"

Lily tenses up at their stares then rubs her arm nervously and plays along. "S-sorry, I shouldn't have said that..."

Sanji sighs before he pats her on the head. "We should be the ones apologizing, we didn't know you felt that way."

Luffy nods with a grin. "Yea, you should've said something. If you don't want to use your wind, you don't have to."

He grabs Lily by the waist, which earns a surprised squeak from the marine as the wind holding her fades. She keeps her face away from the captain, so Luffy doesn't notice that her face isn't blushing as he pulls keeps her at his side with one arm and starts stretching his other arm the rest of the way down.

Sanji twitches an eyebrow at the pair's closeness as he follows them down. "Dammit Luffy, don't take advantage of the situation!"

Luffy looks up at Sanji in confusion as he keeps descending. "What am I taking advantage of?"

As Sanji grumbles something along the lines of a "clueless bastard", Lily couldn't believe the scene that she just experienced. She doesn't know how that wind saved her life, but she's more surprised by the kindness she received from these pirates. For as long as she can remember, she's seen all outlaws as monsters who take and destroy whatever they want.

When she made that complaint about her nonexistent power, she half expected them to threaten her or even force her. However, they treat their crew mates like close friends, just as how her unit normally treats her.

Still, nothing's changed, she's a marine and these boys are pirates. It's her duty to bring them to justice no matter what.

She keeps herself from looking at Luffy and Sanji for the whole ride down until their feet touch the ground. She immediately pulls herself free from Luffy's grasp and starts storming ahead. "If we keep quiet, we won't have any more problems. Let's go bust some heads."

The boys don't hesitate to follow her and continue on their trek to the prison, without realizing that they've been watched this whole time.

Behind the boulder, Rose sighs in relief that she was able to catch Lily before she could get hurt. If anything had happened to her doppelganger in this situation, she doesn't know if she could forgive herself. _*I gotta make the switch with her quick…*_

She continues to silently trail the group, while keeping herself hidden from plain sight along the journey. When the group is running on the path that leads to the prison isle, Rose stays hidden behind a nearby boulder and watches them go towards the cliffside prison.

Sanji stops walking and looks around the surroundings suspiciously. Lily and Luffy stop walking when they see Sanji not moving and look at him in confusion.

"What's the matter Sanji?" Luffy asks, with the chef lighting his cigarette.

When Sanji puffs a smoke, he looks at the building with narrow eyes. "Isn't this too easy? It's like they're waiting for us."

Lily grows tense at the accurate guess, but Luffy brushes it off. "If they are, then we kick their asses and get Zoro back!"

Lily hastily nods with a big smile in hopes of convincing them to go in. "Yea, we have nothing to worry about! We're all strong pirates after all!"

Luffy grins at the fake's optimism as he turns to get inside. "Exactly, let's go!" He runs ahead with Sanji groaning.

As Sanji and Lily go after him, the marine gives the flirt a cute smile. "If you're that worried, I can put this uniform to use and stand guard outside. I'll make sure no one interferes with the rescue while you get moss head out."

Sanji loves the idea as he smiles at her with hearts in his eyes. "What a wonderful idea Rose-chan! Yell out if anything happens!"

"I will, good luck!" She stops at the doorway and waves the two pirates goodbye.

Luffy looks back to see the brunette not going with them, so he looks at Sanji in confusion. "Why isn't Rose coming?"

"She's standing guard for us." Sanji says with Luffy getting a bad feeling about this.

He slows down his pace as he scowls at the path behind them. "Something isn't right about her…"

Sanji raises a curly eyebrow at the assumption as he slows down. "What are you talking about?"

"I don't know, it just feels weird! I mean she's Rose, but it's like she's not her somehow..." Luffy says in frustration of not knowing how to explain it.

Sanji doesn't know much about what it means either, because from what he can see the brunette looks, sounds, and almost acts exactly the same as usual. He shakes his head at his captain's weird attitude. "I don't know what your problem is, but we can figure it out after we get out of here."

Luffy hesitantly nods before he speeds up and goes deeper into the cavern building to rescue his crew mate.

Meanwhile, Lily is grinning in satisfaction of her plan working out as she stands outside. She goes into her pocket and takes out a small, yellow snail before she calls her lieutenant.

As soon as it's answered the snail grows a head of red hair and a goatee to match it before he looks at Lily worriedly. "Lily, are you alright?! Where are you?!"

She nods to him with a small smile, while feeling grateful for him to be worried about her. "I'm alright Lieutenant Noah. I'm sorry for worrying you, some pirates kidnapped me and thought I was one of them. I led them to the brig and standing watch outside."

Noah hums in amusement of how Jonathan was right on the mark about her plans. "Good work. Stay there for the time being. I'm on my way over to make sure you don't get mistaken for a pirate again."

When it looks like he's about to hang up, she stops him. "Wait sir, what happened to the girl you dragged to training?!"

He freezes at the question before he narrows his eyes at his subordinate. "How did you know I dragged someone into training?"

Lily tenses up and shifts her eyes everywhere, like it can help her avoid telling him that she saw him drag Rose out of the library. "Umm, well…"

Noah groans at his cadet's carelessness, and will decide on a punishment for her later. "Never mind, that girl was-"

"A pirate in disguise." Lily and Noah tense up at the new voice, before Lily turns to see the wind girl floating beside her.

Rose ignores the tension as she takes the snail from the marine with an amused smile. "Glad to see you're ok Lily."

"LILY, GET OUT OF THERE RIGHT-!" Rose hangs up on the lieutenant before he could finish and sets the snail on the ground.

Lily could only stare in disbelief of seeing the girl from the wanted poster floating right in front of her. She unconsciously steps back in fear and hits her back against the building. "T-that wind that saved me…"

Rose softly frowns at Lily's fear for her, but knew that this will happen so she doesn't act upset, as she lands in front of her. "Yes, that was me. I didn't want to see my new friend get hurt."

"What are you talking about?! We're not friends!" Lily exclaims as she unsheathes the sword on her belt and goes to strike, but Rose quickly blocks it with her katana.

Rose quietly sighs at her childishness as she pushes her off. "Have you still not figured it out?"

"Figured what out?!" She goes to slash her again, but Rose continues to block her blows.

Rose doesn't try to attack the marine once as she stays on the defensive. "Maybe you can figure it out with this!"

The wind girl thinks of some of the angriest memories that she can remember as she keeps blocking until a hot mood breeze flies out of her.

As soon as the hot air landed on the marine, Lily froze in horror because she remembered feeling this last night. While this wind makes her feel more irritated than the other one felt, there's no denying that this is the same power that her ghost friend had.

Lily only stares at the pirate with a mix of fear, and hatred as she clenches onto her weapon. "It's not true! The ghost has green eyes and she doesn't have freckles!"

Rose sadly sighs as her mood breeze fades, then digs into her pocket to take out the contacts and the envelopes that she stole from her room. "Funny what some makeup and color contacts can do for you. You should know all about it since you did the same thing to copy my features. Even if it was by mistake."

The marine couldn't believe what she's hearing as she snatches her envelopes from her. When she looks down at her stolen letter and photos though, the facts won't let her deny the truth about what happened anymore. She's forced to accept that this girl found out that a marine who looks like her is here, stole her appearance, tricked her into leading her to the library, and took the research material on Hell's Comet for herself. The thought of how she was so easily fooled by this pirate because of her love for the paranormal, makes her sick to her stomach.

Rose stares at the frozen doppelganger in guilt for a moment before she lowers her head in shame. "I'm sorry, I never meant for this to happen. Please, just forget that we ever met..."

She starts heading to the building before Lily speaks up. "Where do you think you're going?"

The wind girl almost cringes at the rage in her voice before she turns to see her glaring at her, while she stuffs the envelopes in her pocket. "To rejoin my crew mates."

"The only way you're doing that is in cuffs, you filthy, two-faced, pirate!" She clenches her sword with both hands as she attacks her while Rose continues to block the blows.

Rose low sweeps her with her leg to knock her down before she flies into the cave.

Lily's fury grows to the point where she forgets her sword on the ground while she gets up and runs after the pirate.

As Rose puts sword back in its sheath, she looks back to see that the pissed off marine is running after her. She has no intention on fighting her, so she keeps on flying, but becomes shocked when she sees Lily grab hidden hand-sized shuriken from her clothes, and start to throw them at her!

"What the crap?!" The wind girl dodges every throwing star coming her way as she flies deeper in the caves with her new enemy in pursuit.

* * *

As soon as Luffy and Sanji made it down to depths of the caves, with only the lanterns on the walls to light their paths, they notice Usopp pressing himself against the bars on his cell.

"There you are! Be careful!" Usopp would wave to them if his hands weren't cuffed behind his back like Zoro's so he sticks to calling out to them.

Luffy keeps on running until he skids to a stop just in front of the cell. "Hey guys! Don't worry, we'll get you right-!"

He stops talking as soon as he touches the metal bars, and feels his strength fade away to the point where he falls to his knees. Usopp yells out in anguish as Sanji catches up to the group.

Zoro immediately becomes wary of the development while Usopp looks to his prison bars. "These bars are sea stone?!"

"That's right!" Drake calls out as he, and two dozen men come out of the shadows to block the entrance way that they came from.

The lieutenant scowls at the two criminals as he allows his men to draw their swords. "Surrender now and we won't kill you."

Sanji scoffs at the demand as he smirks at the soldiers. "Do you really think that threat will stop us?"

"How about this?" Sanji and Luffy widen their eyes at the new voice and turn to see a marine captain blocking their only other path with another dozen of his men aiming rifles at them.

Sanji scowls at the reinforcements as he looks to the bars. If he wants to get all of them out of this alive, there's one thing he has to do first. Kick down Usopp and Zoro's prison door!

The marines from both sides look at the well-dressed pirate in confusion as they watch him try to kick it down, but to no avail.

The captain chuckles at the attempt as he keeps watching Sanji try to kick it down. "You can try all you want, but it'll take a cannon to tear down those bars."

After the fifth kick, Sanji stops and groans to himself for not even leaving a dent in the bars. "Damn, these things are tough…"

 _*A cannon…*_ The wheels in Usopp's head start turning until he comes up with an idea to help get them out of here.

He grins at Sanji before he speaks under his breath. "Sanji, I know what can help! I have an impact dial in my pocket!"

Sanji widens his eyes at the idea before he looks at him suspiciously. "Isn't that supposed to hurt whoever's using it?"

"Yea, but no time to be a wimp!" Usopp leans his right pocket as close to the bars as possible so Sanji can reach for it.

The chef hesitates for a moment, but he doesn't see any other way around it so he goes into the sniper's overall pockets.

Drake raises an eyebrow at the pirate's odd behavior before he glares at them. "This is your last warning!"

Sanji ignores the warning as he takes a blue dial from Usopp's pocks and shows it to the marines. "Shut up gorilla man. I'm gonna show you something that's blow your minds."

"A shell?" Drake and the others look at him in confusion, but are growing curious so they watch him push the shell against the door.

"You might want to step back." Sanji says to Usopp, so the Sniper runs backwards until he's beside Zoro in the back of the cell.

Sanji ignores Luffy, who's still lying on the ground from touching the sea stone, before he activates the dial. He braces himself for an explosion, but it never came.

Instead, the sound of Usopp's voice comes out of the shell. "I'm captain Usopp!"

The line repeats itself on a loop, and confuses every marine in the area.

Sanji however, grows completely embarrassed by the epic fail as his face grows red enough to match a tomato.

Even Zoro becomes embarrassed by the lame attempt to rescue him. "You moron…"

The marine captain snickers at the false alarm while he looks at the talking shell. " _That_ was supposed to 'blow our minds'? Doesn't look frightening to me."

Sanji's bangs shadow over his eyes before he turns to the loudmouth and gives him a glare that could kill him. "Shut the hell up before I gut you like a fish…"

The marines have no doubt in that he would do it and keep their mouths shut in fear.

Usopp awkwardly chuckles in embarrassment as he shuffles back towards the door and leans his left pocket to the bars. "S-silly me, it was in this one…"

Sanji's glare doesn't waver as he snatches the new dial from his pocket.

As the pirate gets to work on getting the next one activated, Drake and his group freeze at the sound of metal clashing behind them.

They look behind them to see two similar looking girls coming in from the entrance with one of them flying towards them while avoiding flying shuriken. They immediately duck to avoid the ninja tool before Rose lands beside them with the soldiers keeping her from being seen by her crew mates.

The wind girl deflects the last of the throwing stars by blowing a gust out of her hands before she finds herself blocked by both Drake's unit and her doppelganger. She narrows her eyes at the marine version of herself as she gets in a stance. _*Damn, I don't want to fight her…*_

Lily shares the same glare as she holds the last two throwing stars in her hands. "Surrender now or-!"

She stops talking when the sound of someone farting fills the air, and a putrid smell fills the area.

It turns out that instead of an impact dial, Usopp gave Sanji an odor dial that was loaded with farts and is now torturing everyone in the cave. Most of the marines, including Lily, had to drop their weapons to cover their noses from the terrible smell.

"Who the fork did that?!" Lily asks in disgust as she tears up from the smell.

Rose looks at her copy in shock for a moment before she giggles and covers her nose. "I don't know what's funnier: the odor dial or you saying 'fork' instead of 'fuck'."

Lily growls at the pirate, but the horrible smell is making it too hard for her to focus on arresting her.

Usopp tears up in agony because he can't protect his long nose from the scent. "Who stored a fart in my odor dial?!"

"I thought it would be funny…" Luffy weakly says as he still holds onto the sea stone bars.

"Why am I not surprised?" Zoro mumbles as he wrinkles his nose in disgust.

Sanji groans at the smell, but stops when he hears the sound of crackling above him. He looks up in fear to see that the fire lit lanterns are starting to react to the gas from Luffy's farts. "GET DOWN! IT'S GONNA BLOW!"

The marines look at him in confusion, but Rose immediately knows what he's talking about.

Rose uses her wind to get Lily and two nearby marines flying back up the stairs just before the explosions begun to take place. One after another, the lanterns blew up the nearby carve walls with both the walls caving in and burying both pirate and marine alike!

The wind carrying Lily and the marines drops them halfway up the stairs, but it was enough distance to keep them from getting hurt from the blast.

Just as they were about to go down, Noah rushes in to approach them. "What happened?!"

"The brig blew up!" One of the marines says with Lily running back down to see that the entrance way is almost completely caved in.

"We need to get the others out!" She says as she starts digging through the new wall with her hands.

Noah uses his metal arm to create a large, round, shield on the back of his arm before he turns to the others. "Go gather some men to collect the wounded!"

"Yes sir!" They run off to get help while the lieutenant goes to the new dirt wall.

He uses the edges on his steel shield to start digging before he talks to Lily. "The wind pirate was the one who hung up on me right? What happened to her?"

"She threw me and the other marines up the stairs just before the explosion hit…" Lily grits her teeth in frustration of not understanding anything. She and Rose are supposed to be enemies, yet the pirate made sure that she didn't get hurt while she took the hit from the explosion…

Noah looks at her softly for a moment before he stops digging. "What exactly is your relationship with her? Are you two sisters?"

She shakes her head. "No, last night was the first time I met her…"

Noah understands the situation less by that, but doesn't push her on the subject and gets back to work. Lily continues to do the same before she finds a gap between the original cave wall and the collapsed dirt, so she looks through the hole to see that the pirates are recovering first.

Sanji coughs up a storm as he digs himself out and looks around. "Is everyone alright?"

Usopp barely moves as the rocks that landed on him fall off of him. "Mission… Accomplished…"

"I guess you can say that…" Zoro says as he breaks the broken wooden cuffs off of himself, then goes to break off Usopp's.

Rose groans from being sent flying from the explosion as she weakly pushes the debris off of her. "How the hell did Luffy's farts cause this?"

"I have no idea." Sanji says before he realizes that Rose is here and looks at her in shock. "Wait, when did you get here?!"

The wind girl casually shrugs before she slowly stands herself up. "I got chased down here by a marine before the explosion came in."

"Help me…" They all look to see their captain still collapsed on the ground with a sea prism bar on top of him.

"What are we gonna do with you?" Sanji asks as he and Usopp pull their captain free of the sea stone while Rose and Zoro dig around until they found Zoro's swords and Usopp's sniper bag.

Lily narrows her eyes at the pirates, when she becomes determined to get some answers, and rushes to dig a hole big enough for her to crawl through. Just when the pirates are making a run for it, she climbs through the hole to go after them.

"What are you doing?! Come back!" Noah orders, but instead of obeying she gets up and goes after them. He tries to go through his hole to go after her but he's too big. He manages to get his metal arm to go through and propels his metal hand after her, but she dodges the hand and continues to run after them.

* * *

"WAIT, DON'T LET ZORO LEAD! HE'LL GET US LOST!" Usopp calls out as the pirates make a run for it with Zoro in front.

Rose couldn't help but smile at being back with her crew mates again as she looks to Zoro. "As long as he doesn't lead us back to the brig, he can get us as lost as he wants!"

"SHUT UP!" Zoro yells back as he runs in every direction he can think of. The pirates run from one hallway to another with no idea on where they're going.

Luffy laughs at the craziness before he looks to the wind girl. He doesn't feel anything amiss with her like when he was with the marine before, so he happily smiles and brushes off the bad feeling he felt before.

After what felt like the twentieth turn, they reach a dead end and stop running.

Usopp groans in frustration before he looks to Zoro in disdain. "I told you he would get us lost!"

"Yea, where are we?" Sanji asks as he looks to the nearby window to find them on a high level of the base.

Rose hums in thought of what she can do as she looks outside. "Do you guys know where the docks are? I might be able to…"

She trails off when she looks to her crew mates and sees them all staring at her like she grew a couple of heads. "What the hell's with you guys?"

All four of them point to something behind her, so she turns around and drops her jaw in pure shock to find her doppelganger there.

The poor girl looks like she just ran a marathon as she slumps against the wall while she catches her breath. Even while she's panting, she doesn't waver in her mission as she glares at the pirates. "I… Finally… Found you…"

Rose covers her face with her hands in hopes that this is some kind of sick joke. "You gotta be shitting me…"

The boys are still trying to recover from the shock as they look from one girl to the other until Luffy finally voices their thoughts. "THERE ARE TWO ROSES?!"

TO BE CONTINUED


	37. Chapter 37

In Navarone's vast library, minutes before Luffy's rescue mission, Nico Robin is cleverly disguised as a marine inspector. She has already gathered as much information as she could about the base's building design from their blueprints. Sadly, it looks like the only way to escape is through the sea gate, and it's probably closed to keep the pirates trapped in their sea cage.

She can think up a few ways to get her and the crew out of this mess, but before any of these plans can get into action, there is one thing that she wants to look into first. She looks over her shoulder to spot the marines, that are spying on her in between the bookshelves, from the corner of her eye.

She knows that she has to be discreet, so she grabs a map of the base, folds it to put in her pocket, and walks over to the librarian's desk where Wanda is going through some of her files.

When the short elder notices the fake inspector, her ruby lips curl up into a smile. "Now what can I do for you inspector?"

Robin matches the librarian's smile as she looks down at the large index book in front of her. "I need to examine your index to audit the library's book placement."

Wanda nods in understanding before she hands her the book. "Knock yourself out, I can assure you that everything's in place."

"Thank you." Robin takes the red book and flips through the index numbers. She knits her eyebrows in interest to find that not only are the contents organized by genre, but also alphabetically.

When she finds the astronomy section of the index, she follows the identification number until she finds a shelf that holds almost every astronomy book that this library holds.

She looks through the shelf until she finds a book with the same dark blue cover and thick width as the book that she's seen Rose read on the ship. She narrows her eyes on the literature and takes a look to find that it's an encyclopedia on comets. _*Could Wind-chan's books be why the marines thought we had something to do with Hell's Comet?*_

She looks through the book's table of contents, but there's no chapter on the other worldly comet that has the World Government so frazzled.

"Something you're interested in?" Robin gets her head out of the book to see Wanda walking up to her.

The librarian looks at the book that Robin's holding and gives her a sweet smile. "Ah, so you have an interest in comets, do you? Any in that book catch your eye? I've read every piece here so I can help refer you something more specific."

Robin blinks at the impressive woman before she returns the smile. "Thank you, but it seems that what I'm looking for isn't in here. What I'm looking for is-"

She stops when the building starts to slightly shake from the explosion in the brig.

"What the?!" Wanda looks up in horror to see that some of the books are starting to fall, so she rushes to catch each piece of literature with Robin's help.

The marines that have been spying on Robin don't do the same, and allow the heavy books on the top shelves to fall off and land on the spies' heads. The nearby men fall unconscious, but remain out of sight for the women to notice.

When the tremor fades, the librarian sighs in relief as she holds onto the ten books that are piled in her hands. "Sorry about that, thanks for helping me catch them."

Robin giggles at her peppy attitude as she puts away the five books that she caught. "It's no problem at all. It looks like you care a lot about these books."

Wanda happily grins at her as she gently sets the books down to grab a ladder. "Of course I do! It doesn't matter how strong someone is, without knowledge you're powerless. And the best way to start gaining knowledge is by reading a book."

She sighs to herself as she leans the wooden ladder against the shelf, and climbs on before she lets Robin pass them over to her, so she can put them in their proper place. "Sadly, not that many officers understand that concept. For those that do though, I try my best to make sure they have what they need to learn all that they can."

Robin softly grins at the wonderful librarian, for she reminds her of her mentors from her homeland. After she gives Wanda the last book, she forces herself to look away from her. "I see, well you have my praise."

As she surveys the area for any more fallen books, she decides to abandon her questions about Hell's comet to the librarian. She knows for sure that her crew somehow caused the tremor. With her crew mates starting an uproar, she needs to make sure that she can escape with them. Because of that, these questions are being reserved for Rose once they're safely out of the base.

She continues to look around the facility, to make it look like she's giving the library a quick last inspection, before she grins at Wanda. "You're doing a wonderful job managing this place. Navarone made a wise choice in entrusting the archives to you."

Wanda freezes at the praise before she gives her a bright smile. "Thank you so much Inspector! If you have some free time before you leave, feel free to come back!"

Robin only nods to the elderly woman before she leaves with the map still in her pocket. Once she's out the door, she goes to leave just before a masculine voice speaks behind her.

"Hold it right there Inspector. What's your destination?"

Robin turns around to see a slightly muscular officer man scowling at her with his rifle in his hand. She's not impressed with the low-ranking marine in the slightest as she continues her act. "I don't believe I'm required to report to you."

"Yes, but we're required to report about you…" He says just before two other officers block her other path with their rifles aimed at her.

They now have the pirate's attention, which is a grave mistake on their part. They're about to see why when Robin smirks at them. "Very well then."

The men keep their guards up when they see her crossing their arms over her chest. However, no amount of training could prepare them for three pairs of arms growing on their bodies. Two to cover their mouths, and their screams, while the rest of the new limbs put them in a clutch until the marines collapse from the pain.

Once they're knocked out, the pirate releases her power and leaves to search for her crew mates.

* * *

In the Vice Admiral's office, Jonathan looks out the window to see smoke rising from where the explosion in the brig occurred. As soon as he realizes where it happened, his den den mushi begins to ring at his desk.

He goes to answer the snail and sees it transform to look like Lieutenant Noah because of the head of red hair to match its goatee. "Vice Admiral, there was an explosion in the brig and caused a cave in! I managed to dig an opening to get the men to collect the wounded!"

Jonathan grins at the news. "Good work Lieutenant, were you able to find your subordinate?"

Noah scowls at the reminder of Lily's disregard for her safety. "I did. Apparently, the wind girl threw her, and a few of our men, out of harm's way before the cave in. I asked Lily what her relationship to the pirate is, but she said that she only met her last night. She dug herself through the dirt wall and ran after the pirates. I tried to stop her, but she's too stubborn for her own good."

Jonathan chuckles in amusement of the brave cadet. "I see, but if they met last night, that could make sense of how the pirate knew to go to your training session."

The lieutenant freezes at the theory before he scowls from remembering his embarrassing mistake. "Actually sir, I mistook her for Lily in the library this morning and dragged her to training…"

Jonathan widens his eyes at the explanation. "Wait a second, you found the pirate in the library? Did she take any books with her?"

Noah freezes at the question when he remembers the backpack Wanda gave her, and Rose made sure to bring with her during her escape. "She did! Even after my fight, she made an extra effort to take them with her! I'm sorry to say, but I don't know what books she took."

As Jonathan processes this information, he gives his subordinate a calm smile. "No need to apologize, you've just given me all the information I need. For now, see if you can find the pirates and your subordinate."

"Yes sir!" He hangs up his side of the line while Jonathan chuckles at the development.

He picks up Rose's wanted poster with a prideful smirk for uncovering one of the crew's mysteries. "So, you're the crew's astronomer..."

His snail rings again, so he answers to hear Lieutenant Drake's voice on the other side. "Sir, I'm sorry to say that our trap failed! I'm searching for the crew with my men as we speak!"

Jonathan puts down the wanted poster as he comes up with a plan for the crew's next trap. "Hold on a second Drake, I need you to set up an ambush in Dock 88, where we're holding the ship."

Drake furrows his eyebrows at the command, because if he's going to do this, he can't afford any more mistakes. "I can do it, but I'm going to need time."

"You'll have it. Noah and his unit are still searching for them, so that should leave you plenty of time. Let me know once the trap is set."

"Yes sir!" Drake hangs up on him to get to the docks and begin preparations for their enemy's arrival.

Jonathan couldn't stop himself from chuckling as he hangs up his line and looks at Luffy's wanted poster. "Your move Monkey D Luffy. What's your plan now?"

* * *

Luffy, Sanji, Usopp, and Zoro are still trying to wrap their heads around what's going on when they see not one but two girls with the face of their crew mate. Besides the cut on one of the girls' cheek, that the wind girl received from fighting Noah, there's no other way to tell them apart.

"What the hell is this?" Zoro asks when he remembers his interrogation with Lieutenant Drake about Rose's crystal, and starts to wonder what else is the wind girl hiding from them.

"Isn't it obvious moss head? Rose-chan has a twin sister!" Sanji says as he begins to happily smile at Lily, who finishes recovering from running so much and starts standing herself upright.

Rose groans at the situation before she walks up to Lily. "As far as I know, I don't have a sister. She could be disguised as me to-!"

The pirate cuts herself off when Lily draws two daggers from her boots and points them to her neck. The marine keeps her contact covered eyes on the wind girl as she keeps the two blades close to her skin, but light enough so that they won't harm her. "What makes you think that you didn't disguise yourself as me?!"

"Wait, what?! Which one is Rose then?!" Usopp asks as he stays in the back of the group. Luffy stays quiet with his hat shadowed over his eyes, while Zoro and Sanji are trying to figure out which one of them is their crew mate.

Rose immediately understands what her doppelganger is trying to pull and is unimpressed by her stunt. "You can't be serious..."

"As serious as they come marine!" Lily says as she keeps the knives on her neck.

Rose tries to use her power to push her off, but nothing happens. She freezes before she starts feeling dizzy from the sea stone embedded at the tip of the blades. _*What the fuck?! Where do they get these weapons?*_

She is able to keep herself standing, but with the blade on her skin, she can't use her powers at all. Rose moves her eyes to the guys in hopes that they don't buy her act. "Guys, don't listen to her. She's just pretending to be me again."

"What do you mean again?" Zoro asks curiously.

"Sanji and Luffy grabbed this girl while I was dragged to her training session this morning. We switched back when she chased me to the brig before the explosion." Rose says as her mind gets to work on what she can say to convince them that she's the pirate.

Lily scoffs at the claim as she looks to Luffy and Sanji. "Please, you guys saw me flying before we went to the brig! It's obvious that she's lying to-!"

"You're the one who's lying." Everyone freezes when Luffy speaks up and sees him scowling at her.

He immediately walks up to the girls, but nobody does anything to stop the captain because they're all curious about what he's going to do.

The girls look at him on confusion before Luffy pulls Rose away from the marine by the waist and hugs her.

When Rose's face turns red from the embrace, Luffy happily smiles at her. "See, this one's the real Rose!"

Rose immediately feels better, because she's no longer touching the sea stone, and covers her face in her hands to try to hide her red cheeks. "Dammit Luffy, there were other ways to tell us apart!"

"Yea, but this is faster." Luffy says as he lets her pull away from him.

The others immediately believe that the girl Luffy hugged is their crew mate, because there's no way to fake that kind of reaction. But that leaves the remaining question, who the hell is the fake?

When Sanji remembers that Lily didn't blush when Luffy first carried her, he immediately realizes that Luffy's doubts about her were right. "You were the one that lead us to the brig!"

"She did what?! Wait, who the hell are you?!"" Usopp asks as he and Zoro keep their eyes on the sneaky marine.

Lily groans at being found out, as she points a knife to Rose. "My name is Lily. I came here to get answers from her."

Rose tries to keep her temper under control as she furrows her eyebrows at her doppelganger. "And what was trying to turn my crew mates against me supposed to accomplish?"

"I wanted to see what you'd say to prove you were really Rose. I didn't expect for you and your captain to be that close though." Lily looks to Luffy and curiously stares at him. "You know, I underestimated you. You suspected me from the beginning, right? How'd you know?"

Luffy crosses his arms over his chest to try to think up a way to explain why he didn't feel as happy with Lily as he does with Rose. He looks to Rose then back to the marine before he shrugs. "I don't know, it must be instinct. I just didn't feel the same way around you as I do with her."

Rose looks at him in confusion, for she has no idea what that means. "What feelings do you-?" She raises a hand to stop herself from making this situation any weirder and turns to Lily. "You know what, never mind. What answers are you looking for?"

"Why'd you save me and those two marines from the cave in, and what are you all doing here?!" Lily asks as she keeps her guard up around the criminals.

The others look to Rose for this one, since she's the one who saved her.

The wind girl doesn't want to stay in this situation for long, so she does her best to get through this as quickly as possible. "Our ship fell from the sky. And about me helping you, do I really need a reason to do something nice?"

Lily grows more irritated at the dodged answers as she glares at her. "You do when we're supposed to be enemies! You know why we share the same face, don't you?! That's the only thing that could make sense of it!"

Rose quietly sighs at the stressful situation as she looks her in the eyes. "Look, I didn't even know you existed till last night. There are a lot of possibilities for why we look the same, from this being a weird coincidence to me being your long lost, evil, twin."

Usopp blankly stares at her for giving them such a bogus possibility. "Evil twin?"

The wind girl casually shrugs at his doubt. "It can happen. We could even be doppelgangers, two people with no relationship to one another yet have the same face."

Zoro furrows his eyebrows at the explanation, for when he remembers the marine Tashigi's resemblance to his dead childhood rival, he finds the story to be believable. However, he still holds suspicions against her thanks to the experiment, so he doesn't say anything to stop the questions.

Lily narrows her eyes at the girl for she doesn't believe her one bit. "Then why didn't you come forward when you found out I was with your crew mates?! After all, it was your wind that saved me from falling off the cliff!"

Sanji and Luffy look at her in shock of the fact that Rose knew they had the wrong girl, while the wind girl groans at being found out. "I was still trying to figure out what to do at the time! If we stayed outside to try to understand why there's two of us for too long, we would've been sitting ducks!"

She stops when she realizes that they've been standing around for about ten minutes. "Like we are right now! Guys, she's been buying time for the rest of the marines!"

"What?! Then let's get out of here!" Usopp says as he goes to run, but Lily blocks his path and points her blades at him.

The sniper yelps in fear as Luffy and Zoro get ready to fight while Sanji stays back to honor his code of never harming a lady.

Lily glares at the pirates as she gets in a stance. "None of you are going anywhere until-!"

Rose cuts her off by using her wind to send her flying up until she slams her head to the ceiling to knock her unconscious!

"You just knocked yourself out!" Usopp yells in shock as he and the others watch Rose continue to use her wind to carry the marine, and her weapons, by her side.

Rose twitches an eyebrow at the complaint, because she thought she made it clear that they're not the same, and glares at him. "Shut the hell up and help me find a place to lay her down!"

The sniper hastily nods as he and Sanji look through the nearby rooms for a place to drop the marine off.

"Why do you care about putting her somewhere? You said that you only knew about her last night." Zoro says as he gives her a cold stare.

Rose raises an eyebrow at the suspicious look he's giving her, before she sees Sanji waving for her to bring her in a room five doors down. "I did, but I took a walk in her shoes this morning. She may be annoyingly stubborn, but she grew on me."

"She's pretty funny too." Luffy says he and Zoro watch Rose take her to the office Sanji pointed her out to.

Rose gently sets the sleeping girl down on the red couch, with her knives on the floor. She sadly stares at the marine for how things turned out for them, but she knows that it's better to keep her from knowing that she has a criminal as an other world version of herself or she'd hate her even more. She sighs to herself before she closes the door and tiredly turns to the others. "Can we please get out of here now?"

The boys immediately agree as they make a run for it.

"How are we going to find the Merry?" Luffy asks as they run with Sanji in the lead.

Usopp takes the lead in the group and looks back to them. "I made it to the dock before I was arrested, I remember going this way to get there! We need to make a right at the end of the hall!"

The group follows his direction, except for Zoro who turned in the opposite direction.

"Dammit Zoro!" Rose uses her wind to pick up the swordsman and brings him back to the group.

"Put me down!" Zoro orders, which Rose complies to by dropping him on his feet.

Sanji chuckles at how he was brought back. "Next time don't get lost moss head."

"What was that dartboard brow?!" Both Zoro and Sanji glare at each other as they run, and make it into a race with each other to see who could get there first, while Luffy laughs at the argument.

Usopp ignores the fighting as he runs ahead of them, and tries to remember the way to get to the dock. "Ok, if I remember right, we're not too far from the dock. As we don't run into any marines, we're good."

Sanji stops glaring at the swordsman, and looks around to see that no one has been chasing them since they dealt with Lily. "We actually should've run into more by now. They must be setting a trap for us again."

"So what? We got out of the last one, so we can get out of this one." Luffy says with an easygoing smile.

Rose grins at his carefree attitude before she looks ahead. "Trap or not, the only way to get to Merry is at the dock. Right Usopp?"

Usopp nervously nods, because as much as he would rather do anything else but face the marines, the Merry comes first. He leads through hallway after hallway. Any enemies that they come across, they waste no time in knocking them out without a moment's hesitation until the giant green doors with the number '88' painted in black come into view.

"Here it is!" Usopp says with Luffy running past him.

"Then let's go!"

"Wait Luffy!" Zoro calls out but the captain doesn't listen to them as he barges through the doors with his crew mates following behind.

What they found on the other side of the door though was not only their beloved ship, but also Drake and an army of hundreds of marines blocking their path.

Usopp freezes at the sight in horror while the other crew members get ready to fight them at any moment.

The soldiers immediately have their rifles ready when Drake begins to bark out the orders. "Sniper Team #7 to the front!"

The men go to take the lead with rifles in hand and aim for the pirates. The Straw Hats get ready to fight, and just when marines fire.

"GUM GUM BALLOON!" Before the others could react, Luffy inflates his whole body, to the point where other pirates are knocked down and takes all the bullets.

The bullets stayed on his rubber body for a second before they ricocheted off of him and flew back at the marines. The soldiers duck at the returning bullets, while Drake stays perfectly still as they missed him.

"Give us a warning when you do that!" Zoro and Sanji call out at the same time as they get up to see Luffy's body returning to its original state.

Rose and Usopp get up and look in shock to see that the sniper team has been replaced by a team of men with bazookas in their hands.

"Cannon Team #12, prepare to fire!" Drake orders with the men taking position.

Rose remembers what those men will be firing in the anime, so she starts turning her arms into air just as they fired. She turned the two limbs into strong gusts of wind to stop the flash bombs heading towards them, and throws them back to the center of the fleet.

The men surrounding the bombs rush to get away before they go off and blind half of them. Smoke from the flash bombs fills the area while Drake growls in irritation. "The plan is still in effect! Sword Team, attack!"

The members of the sword team, who wore goggles in preparation of the attack, draw their swords and charge their enemies.

Luffy, Zoro, Sanji, and Rose don't hesitate in rushing to accept the challenge as they charge for the attack. Each pirate is battling relentlessly with more marines charging at them by the minute as they recover from the flash bombs.

Usopp stays out of the line of fire with his slingshot in hand. Whenever it seems one of his crew mates are about to get attacked from behind, he attacks them with an exploding star to keep their backs safe in the fight.

Luffy punches out the marines closest to him before he stretches his right leg back. "GUM GUM WHIP!"

Rose stops using her wind, to send the marines around her flying, when she heard the captain's voice, and flies up to avoid the stretched kick towards almost every marine in a ten-foot radius.

Zoro and Sanji however, weren't lucky enough to avoid the strong kick and were slammed to the wall on their right along with the dozens of other marines that took the hit.

Rose has to bite the inside of her cheek to prevent herself from laughing at the sight as she lands next to her confused captain and shell-shocked sniper.

Luffy keeps looking around in confusion of where Zoro and Sanji are. "What happened to Zoro and Sanji?"

"You hit them with your kick!" Usopp calls out in disbelief of Luffy's carelessness.

The pile of unconscious marines begins to shift until Zoro and Sanji emerge from it.

"You dumbass!" Sanji says as he glares at their captain and gets up with the swordsman.

Rose's urge to laugh begins to fade away, but her smile disappears as well when the sound of a cannon fire is shot!

All the pirates look in shock to see that a net was launched at the two devil fruit users so fast that neither of them could avoid getting caught! The net sends both Rose and Luffy flying until they're slammed into the wall behind them.

Both Rose and Luffy become tangled together in the net, with Rose practically laying on top of Luffy, with the captain's legs wrapped around her own as they struggle for freedom. However, neither of them can muster up the strength, due to the sea stone that's embedded in the knots of the net.

"Damn, can't get this off…" Luffy says as he feels weaker by the second and lays his back against the wall.

"Ugh, if I ever see sea stone again after this, I'm throwing it in the fucking ocean…" Rose tiredly says as she gives up on trying to get out and lays her back on Luffy's chest with her head next to his.

"That net has sea stone in it?!" Usopp says as he goes to free them when he hears the sound of guns aiming at him.

"Stay right where you are!" Usopp freezes to Drake's order as he and the other able-bodied pirates see the snipers ready to fire at any moment. Drake keeps his rigid scowl on his face as he scans the pirates. "Your posters say 'dead or alive'. Here at Navarone, we prefer for you to be alive. If you resist any further though, I can't guarantee your lives."

Sanji and Zoro narrow their eyes at the Lieutenant, but don't try anything yet because of Luffy and Rose's situation.

Drake smirks at their silence before he nods to the men to start approaching with their rifles in hand.

Usopp backs up with his back to the open doorway just when screaming can be heard down the hall. Both pirate and marine alike look to the doorway in confusion to see a female doctor and Nami, dressed as a nurse, pushing an operating table with a sheet covering a lump on the bed, running towards them at full force.

Usopp didn't have time to get out of the way, so the table runs him over and knocks the poor sniper out cold.

Nami and the doctor finally stop running and fully assess the situation.

"WHAT THE HELL?!" Nami asks in shock of finding hundreds of marines at the dock.

Sanji's eyes turn into beating hearts when he sees the navigator in a cute nurse's outfit and happily smiles at her. "Even when we're in danger she's beautiful! Especially in a nurse's outfit!"

"Shut up dartboard brow…" Zoro says which leads the two of them to glare at each other.

Under the sheet of the operating table, the lump moves to reveal Chopper's face. When the reindeer sees his beaten sniper laying on the floor unconscious, he widens his eyes in horror. "Usopp!"

He goes into heavy point, with the white sheet draped around his shoulders, gets off the table, and picks up his injured crew mate. "He's badly injured! He could die! And it's all because of these soldiers!"

Chopper glares at the men while Zoro and Sanji whisper for him to settle down.

Drake finally snaps out of his daze from the surprise of the new arrivals when he recognizes the doctor to be Dr. Kobato from the medical ward. However, he has no idea who the other two arrivals are, so he glares at them. "Identify yourselves!"

Nami flinches at the order, as she tries to come up with a-!

"AAAAAAHHHHHHH!" Kobato interrupts her train of thought as she screams so loud that the frames of her glasses threatened to shatter from the sheer pitch!

Both the pirates and marines had to cover their ears from the agonizing shriek.

As soon as the volume drops to regular screams Nami gives her a piece of her mind. "What's the matter with you?!"

Kobato ignores the questions as she looks to the marines in fear. "Please help us! We've been taken hostage!"

Nami gets taken aback by the act when Kobato slyly winks at her then continues screaming for help. "He threatened to kill us if we didn't help him! AAAH!"

Nami joins in the act by screaming in fright along with her.

Chopper has no idea what's happening and tries to get them to stop while Zoro and Sanji just sweat drop at the performance.

"Who the hell's the screamer?" Zoro asks as he blankly stares at the screaming girls.

"How should I know?" Sanji answers as he's more worried about why Nami is so upset.

The marines completely fall for the act as they cautiously step back from the pirates to ensure the hostages safety.

"We can't go rushing in now that they have hostages…" One of the marines say as he glares at the criminal.

Drake clicks his tongue in rage of the situation. "This is why I hate pirates! They're all cowards! The hairy man must be a pirate then!"

Chopper freezes when he's being outed as a pirate and figures out the girls' act. He keeps Usopp on his shoulder, with the sheet still on him, before he smirks at the marines. "You got that right! I'm a ruthless member of the Straw Hats! Even babies shut the hell up when they get a look at me! You'd better do exactly as I say or they hostages will pay with their lives!"

Zoro grins at the pleasing performance and applauds him while the girls scream in fright.

Sanji immediately understands the acts and smiles in amusement. "Interesting."

Chopper continues his role as the villain as he smirks like the devil to the heroes of justice. "Alright, order your goons to stand down and let us on our ship!"

When the marines hesitate in the order, Chopper glares at them and tries a different approach. "Do it now or I'll kill these girls right now!"

Zoro holds back a chuckle from the reindeer's acting before he smirks to the marines and joins the act. "I'd do what he says guys. Even we can't stop him when he's on a rampage."

Sanji snickers as he gives the soldiers a devilish grin. "It wouldn't look well for the heroes of justice to let two women die now would it?"

The marines glare at the threatening pirates as they begin to consider the demands.

Rose, who is completely dizzy from all the sea stone, smiles to Chopper and claps for the amazing show he's giving them. "Bravo doc~! Bravo~!"

Luffy tiredly groans from his spot in the net and voices his complaint. "Don't say 'bravo' to Chopper~! This is cowardly~! I'm disappointed~!"

"Shut up you morons!" Nami whispers angrily to shut them up before she returns to the act by screaming with Dr. Kobato.

Thankfully, Drake and his men didn't hear her whispers as they watch Nami and Kobato hug each other to make their act more convincing and scream in fright.

Drake begins to tremble with rage, but with this seemingly horrible situation, there's nothing he could do to capture them without the hostages getting hurt. He clicks his tongue before he looks to his soldiers. "Men, lower your weapons and stand down!"

The marines are reluctant at first, but they know there's no other option to ensure the hostages' safety, so they do as they're told.

Zoro hums in amusement of the marines retreating. "That went well." He unsheathes one of his swords and goes over to the net that has the two devil fruit users held prisoner.

With one swing of the blade, he easily chops the ropes of the net and lets it fall off his friends.

"Thanks Zoro." Rose says as she slowly gets off of Luffy.

"Yea, we owe you one." Luffy says as he raises a hand up for Zoro to take.

The swordsman pulls Luffy's arm over his shoulder and wraps his other hand around his waist to keep him standing.

Rose manages to stay standing on her own, but she's still groggy from being exposed to the stone for so long to be of any help.

The pirates look on to the marines to see that they've opened a path for them to get to the Merry.

Drake keeps his beady eyes on the criminals, but doesn't make any sudden moves. "We've complied to your demands, so release the hostages!"

Nami holds herself back from smiling in satisfaction of their plan working, but she knows that it's not over until they board the boat. When she sees Chopper not saying anything yet, she nudges him with her foot.

The reindeer snaps out of it and gives the men his most menacing look. "I'm the one calling the shots here! I'll release them when we're out of here!"

"Why you cowardly-!" Drake holds his tongue to make sure the hostages don't get hurt.

Before he does anything, another officer approaches him from behind and whispers at him. "I've contacted Unit #17, and they're on standby."

"Good, have them wait for my signal." Drake whispers back before he glares at the pirates. "Alright, we're not going to stop you! Get on your ship!"

Zoro narrows his eyes to the suspicious marine and stays on guard as he half drags his recovering captain with him.

The rest of the crew, along with Dr. Kobato, follow suit to walk down the path that's surrounded by soldiers who are itching to arrest them if they didn't have hostages.

Rose recovers enough to walk in the same pace as the others as she keeps her eyes open for anyone who's willing to attack. She stops surveying the crowd when she sees Marta from the weapon's unit glaring directly at her.

The wind girl only looks away from her to avoid causing any more conflict with her and the marines.

Zoro however, continues to move his eyes to where the soldiers are to see that a few of them are moving in the crowd. He knows that a trap is coming, but he doesn't make it noticeable as he doesn't miss a step. Instead, he speaks loud enough for the nearby pirates to hear. "Nami, Chopper, Rose, Love cook."

The crew mates give him their attention as they listen to him. "When I give the signal, get to the ship as fast as you can."

They immediately understand, but don't say anything in risk of being found out.

Meanwhile, Zoro speaks softer to the slowly recovering pirate he's dragging. "Luffy, I need you to stretch your arms and get everyone on board. Can you do that?"

Luffy slowly nods as he almost regains his full strength.

The crew gets ready to get their plan into action, before they hear something drop to their left. They look to see that one of the soldiers dropped their rifle.

"Oh, clumsy me…" The officer nervously picks up his weapon.

"Don't scare us like that!" Nami complains, but freezes when she hears muffled yelling from Dr. Kobato. She turns to see that an officer is dragging her away from them, and sees one about to grab her!

Before he could touch her though, Nami punches him in the face and screams in fright!

"Stupid girl!" Drake calls out as the other crew members realize what's going on.

"Nami!" Sanji stays close to the navigator just as the men were about to attack.

"Luffy now!" Zoro calls out, so the captain stretches his arm back. The arm goes around the crew mates and slingshots the pirates to the ship.

The marines step back in shock of the crazy move, but one of them accidentally trips backwards and cuts the rope, that's tied to the deck to hold the ship down, with the sword in his hand.

The Merry begins to move just when Rose creates a gust of wind to cushion everyone's landing on the deck.

"Get the ship moving!" Sanji says as he and the others get to work on moving the ship while Chopper lays the unconscious sniper down on the deck.

"Wait for us!" Luffy says as he keeps his stretched arm on the railing and rockets Zoro and himself to the ship. The flight was too fast for them to stop in time to avoid the railing as they hit it face first before they flip over to land on the deck. They groan at the rough landing but, they don't put too much work to it as they're heading to the open water.

Drake turns to the sniper unit and points to the ship. "DON'T LET THEM ESCAPE! ALL SQUADRONS OPEN FIRE!"

Dr. Kobato widens her eyes at the order. "Wait, what about the nurse?!"

"We'll aim warning shots!" Drake assures her with the soldiers taking aim and firing next to the ship.

The ship ignores the warning shots as they travel out of range of the gun shots.

Usopp regains consciousness to find his crew mates shuffling around on the Merry to get the ship moving. "How did we escape the marines?"

"Nami and doc showed off their amazing acting skills by making it look like Nami was his hostage." Rose says in pride of her friends' work in getting them out of the marines' trap, before she flies up to the sails to create some wind for them.

"Shut up, don't think that kind of praise would make me happy, you jerk!" Chopper says while he blushes at the praise and starts dancing.

Usopp chuckles at the dance before he looks to the coastline. "It's impressive for Chopper, but Nami's always been good at tricking people."

Nami whacks him on the head with her clima-tact before she groans. "Anyway, what now? We don't know where Robin is and have no way out of here…"

"I see Robin over there!" Luffy says with the overs following his gaze to see Robin, in her regular clothes, swinging towards them of a vine that she made out of sprouted arms.

Robin casually smiles at her crew mates as she lands on the deck. "Hey everyone."

"Where'd you come from?" Nami asks as she approaches her.

"The library. By the way, I have something you might need for our escape Navigator-san." Robin takes the map of the base out of her pocket and hands it to her.

The navigator stares at the map with wide eyes before she happily smiles at Robin. "You're amazing Robin! This is just what we need!"

She begins to scan it for a way to escape, when the sound loud cannon fire fills the air.

Half of the crew screams in fright when a cannonball barely misses them.

Usopp runs to the rail to see that they're no longer giving them warning shots, but are aiming directly at them. "I thought they wouldn't shoot since we have a hostage!"

"They were bound to know the truth sometime! We gotta move to the sea gate!" Nami shouts as the men get to work on turning so it keeps moving ahead, avoids the cannons.

Rose keeps using her wind to get the ship moving quickly, but sees that their problems are growing more by the minute. "Uh guys, we got more than just cannons coming at us!"

The others follow her gaze to see that three warships are in pursuit of them.

Nami groans at the new problem before she looks ahead to see that the sea gate is coming into view, but the metal door is sealed shut. "Usopp, get the cannon! We need to blast our way out!"

The sniper rushes inside for the weapon, but immediately rushes back outside empty handed. "We don't have any cannonballs!"

"What?!" Nami asks in horror.

Robin hums in understanding as she looks to the sea gate. "It makes sense since the marines confiscated the ship. They wouldn't want to leave any weapons lying around."

"Then how are we going to bust through the gate?" Chopper asks as he steers the ship in his heavy point form.

"We just need to get to the gate and gain control over the gate." Sanji says as he acts like it's an easy feat.

Zoro looks back to the warships and starts smirking. "As for these guys, we just need to take them down."

"Quit talking like these plans are easy!" Usopp says as he has no idea on which plan is worse.

Luffy chuckles from his seat on Merry's head before he turns to the guys. "Relax, I have a great idea!"

The rest of the crew, except for Robin and Rose, tense up because they know whatever he's planning is going to be reckless.

Sadly, they have no time to question him when they see a barrage of ten cannonballs heading their way!

Luffy smirks at the attack as he jumps up and starts inflating his stomach. "GUM GUM BALLOON!"

His stomach inflates to a size large enough to catch all of the cannonballs and send him flying backwards to the sail. The sail manages to catch the captain before he ricochets the cannonballs off of him and sends them flying towards the sea gate.

Every nearby marine is shell shocked at the stunt as they watch the cannons blow a hole large enough for them to escape. The explosion causes a large black smokescreen to envelope the Merry and the warships.

Rose laughs at the amazing trick as she stops creating a gust for the sail, so she can focus her wind to catch her captain before he could fall. "Nice shot captain!"

Luffy happily grins at her while he lets her set him down on the deck while she stays floating by the sails.

Usopp is amazed at the stunt as he turns to Luffy just as he lands. "Great work Luffy! That'll teach them for taking our explosives!"

Nami nods in agreement as she thinks of how lucky they were that that could bust out even with their explosives stolen. Wait, if the marines stole their cannonballs, then what's to stop them from stealing…?

The navigator screams in fright, and scares the others as they watch her run inside. "IT'S GONE! THEY TOOK OUR TREASURE!"

The others freeze in shock before Nami rushes outside. "Turn around! We can't leave without it!"

"Are you crazy?! We're almost out of here!" Zoro says, but Nami won't have any of it.

"I'm perfectly sane, but we can't leave without the treasure!" She turns to the captain in an attempt to persuade him. "As pirates we can't leave our gold behind! Especially to marines!"

Luffy nods in agreement. "Alright then!"

Nami grins in satisfaction before she turns to Sanji and Chopper. "Make a U-turn to take us back to the fortress!"

"Yes Nami-san!" Sanji happily says as he and Chopper run to the rudder to turn the ship right just before they could reach the gate.

Rose doesn't use her wind on the sails anymore to make sure the boat doesn't flip from the sharp turn that gets them away from their chance of escape. Luckily, the soldiers couldn't see the turn in the smoke screen, so they keep going straight to head out to the open ocean and lose another chance to capture the pirates.

* * *

In Jonathan's office, the Vice Admiral is at his desk to think up the base's next move to capture the Straw Hats. He fiddles with the white king chess piece in his hand as he theorizes on the crew's next move. "They must've found out that we have their treasure and the Hell's Comet gem. The rest of the crew knowing about the crystal is unlikely, so if they were to come back then it would be for just the gold…"

He puts down the chess piece, and looks to the three wanted posters for the Straw Hats that are laid out on his desk. If the crew is willing to stay to try to retrieve the gold, there are a few strategies that they would use. In every one that he could think of, he could imagine the wind pirate making it a goal of hers to find the crystal without the others finding out. If he keeps the crystal and the gold separated then there's a better chance to capture them by having them divided.

He continues to think up a strategy when his den den mushi rings. He picks up the line to see dark mutton chops grow on the snail. "What happened Drake?"

"I'm sorry sir, but we've lost sight of the pirates as soon as we reached the ocean! It's as if they vanished!"

Jonathan holds himself back from chuckling at the new development. "So they're really doing it."

"Sir?"

"Nothing, you've done well. Come back with the rest of the ships."

"Yes sir." Drake hangs up on him, so Jonathan hangs up the line.

He gets up from his seat just when he hears knocks on his closed office door. "Come in."

The door opens to Noah with Lily standing by his side.

After the Lieutenant found her knocked out in an empty office and woke her up, the marine girl immediately took off the freckle makeup and color contacts so that nobody would mistake her for the pirate again. The brunette is still embarrassed for losing so easily, so she keeps her head low, with her bangs covering her eyes, as she follows her lieutenant into the office.

"We came as you requested sir." Noah asks as he and his cadet salute their commander.

"At ease you two." Jonathan says as the two of them lower their salutes while he looks at Lily. "My, you really do have a resemblance to Wind Rider. Is there a reason?"

She shakes her head before she lifts her head to reveal her green eyes from under her bangs. "I have no idea as to why we look similar sir. I confronted the pirate about it, but she made up these excuses like evil twins and doppelgangers."

Jonathan freezes at the mention of doppelgangers, because he's heard something about this before when Admiral Akainu spoke to him about the dangers of Hell's Comet. However, the details about this are foggy to him. Instead of worrying about it, he nods in understanding. "I see, well don't worry about it. I called you both here because the pirates are going to retrieve the treasure that we took from them. There's a special gem that Wind Rider in particular will be aiming to get back, because it's a piece of her research. I want you two, along with the rest of the weapon's unit, to use it as bait for a trap."

Both the marines widen their eyes at this before Noah steps up. "Very well sir, but what if the pirates don't take the bait?"

"If they escape without this gem, then use your metal arm to throw it into the ocean. This stone can't be used by anyone in the base under any circumstances. Do you understand?"

Both of them nod, so he gives them a carefree smile. "Very good, the bait is in research lab 19. I recommend moving it somewhere away from the labs."

"Yes sir!" Both Lily and Noah salute him one more time before they leave the office.

As the two of them head off to begin their assignment, Noah begins to grow concerned about his cadet's safety because of how dangerous this can be to someone who's as relatively new to the navy as Lily. He stops her from walking and looks down at the shorter girl. "If you find this to be too much for you, I can put you on standby for this mission."

Lily hates the fact that she's being given the easy way out and scowls up at him. "I have to be on this mission! I can't face the rest of the unit proudly if I let the pirates do whatever they want!"

Noah nods and smirks in pride of his subordinate's bravery. "Very well, we'll face them together. Let's gather the unit and create a strategy on how to handle them."

"Yes sir!" Lily follows her leader and is practically beaming with excitement of the chance to redeem herself with her first official mission with the navy to capture the Straw Hat Pirates.

* * *

While the crew manages to escape the smoke screen, and head to one of the base's docks that's been abandoned due to budget cuts, Rose couldn't stop worrying about her sample of the comet's power that she left in the bathroom after the ship landed at the base. She sneaks below deck to go to the bathroom to see that the box, that held her gem sample, is shattered from the fall and her backpack is in the corner of the room. She looks all over the floor for her gem, that held the comet's energy, but there's not a trace of it in the room. _*THOSE BASTARDS STOLE MY SAMPLE! WAIT, THE POSE!*_

She rushes to her backpack and goes to the front compartment of the big bag. She digs through the dials that she got from Skypiea until she sees her eternal pose to Marineford safely tucked away. She sighs in relief that the marines didn't dig too deep into her bag, and puts the shell-like devices back on top to keep the pose hidden.

"Missing your rock?" Rose tenses up at the question and turns to see Zoro staring at her from the doorway.

Rose slowly nods as she zips her bag shut and drops her new backpack with the base's research material on the floor next to it. "Yea, it's a gem so they could've mistaken it for a part of the treasure."

Zoro narrows his eyes at her evasiveness, because he knows that she's using half-truths to keep what her sample truly is a secret. "You know, I thought you were more honest than this."

The astronomer tenses up at the disappointment in his voice, and furrows her eyebrows in confusion. "What do you-?"

"Zoro, Rose, get up here so we can talk strategies!" They stop at Nami's order from the deck.

The swordsman turns his back to the wind girl and starts walking away. "We'll talk about this later."

Rose didn't even get a chance to answer as he storms off. The wind girl becomes more worried in what he's talking about, but she needs to deal with the problem in hand and that's getting her stone back from the marines.

She pulls her necklace out of her shirt, then grips it for support, before she lets it stay out of her shirt, and heads to the kitchen where the rest of the crew is gathered around the table to talk about their plan. The wind girl decides to play it by ear for now, so that she doesn't cause any problems with Zoro, and takes a seat between Luffy and Chopper.

Chopper is the first to speak as he looks to Nami from across the table in confusion. "So what now Nami?"

"We should be escaping from the gate! Our lives are more important than gold!" Usopp says before Nami could speak.

He turns to Luffy, who's laying his head on the table. "We can get gold at another island but we can't come back from the dead!"

Luffy groans at the protest before his stomach growls louder. "We're not leaving without the gold, but we need to eat first!"

Sanji chuckles at Luffy's bottomless stomach before he gets up and goes to the fridge. "I'll whip up something for everyone."

As the chef searches the fridge for food that he can make for the others, the rest of the crew works on a strategy that they can agree on.

Nami, who's changed from the nurse's uniform to a tank top and shorts, scowls at Usopp as she crosses her arms over her chest. "We can't leave here without the gold. We'd never be able to live it down."

"We won't be able to live at all if we stay here." Usopp says.

Nami sighs in fake disappointment and shrugs. "Well, that's too bad. If we got the treasure, then we would've had it divided after all."

Usopp starts singing a different tune as he smiles at her. "You're serious?!"

"Of course."

Luffy happily grins at the idea as he picks his head up. "Then I'm gonna get a bronze statue!"

"And medical books!" Chopper says in glee.

Sanji takes some food out of the fridge and puts them on the counter before he takes out an abacus from the drawer and starts calculating what he could get with his share. "Pots, frying pans, giant mouse traps, and a lock for the fridge…"

He hums in satisfaction that he could get the things he just listed and more with his cut.

"I can finally get a good booze stash." Zoro says with a grin while Robin and Rose both stay quiet about what they would get with the gold.

Nami grins at how it looks like they're all on board now. "That would be great, but there's one thing the money needs to go to first."

"You'd better not say your pocket." Zoro says with Nami giggling at the assumption.

"I'm not, we need to use it to repair the ship first."

Even Robin is surprised by Nami's suggestion as the other boys.

Rose however, knew that this is what the money's supposed to go to, but was never used for it because of how unfixable Merry is. She keeps her thoughts away from the Merry's condition in fear of her mood breeze giving her away, and instead thinks of her good memories with the ship with a small smile.

The wind girl keeps her mouth shut, with her wind in check, while Luffy looks at Nami in confusion. "You want to fix the Merry?"

The navigator nods as she looks around at the old kitchen. "That's right, Merry has been through a lot to get us to where we are."

Usopp slowly nods as he remembers first board the Merry in his home village. "You're right, she brought us from East Blue to the Grand Line after all."

"It's pretty impressive for it to have survived attacks from pirates, marines, and even sky priests that tried to burn it." Robin says.

"And even bringing us up to the sky." Sanji says with a smile as he puts his abacus away and gets back to work on cooking for the crew.

The sniper nods as he remembers repairing the ship with Merry's spirit. "I still can't believe that I made repairs with Merry to make sure she can come down with us."

Everyone else, except for Rose, blankly stares at Usopp because they still don't believe that he saw Merry's ghost.

The liar takes their disbelief offensively as he scowls at them. "I'm telling the truth!" He turns to the wind girl, who was the reason he could spend time with the ghost in the first place. "You were there too! Tell them!"

Rose freezes at the plea when she sees their eyes on her. She knits her eyebrows in thought, as if she's thinking hard to remember that night, before she acts like she just remembered. "Oh yea, I did see her that night."

The others widen their eyes at her blunt comment before Usopp smirks in pride. "See?! I told you she was there!"

"What?! Merry's haunting the ship?!" Chopper asks with Usopp shaking his head.

"No, she can only appear in holy land like in Skypiea!"

Luffy pouts at the news. "Aw man, I wanted to see her…"

"The ghost can only appear in holy land?" Robin asks because it's hard for her to believe the tale.

Rose turns to the archaeologist and shrugs at the question. "The only night we saw her was on Skypiea. Now that I think about it though, Merry really is amazing. She came to life to make sure that she can keep sailing with us."

Nami absently nods at this, because she barely believes it, and returns to the subject. "Even with the repairs, the ship's pretty beaten up. We should use the money to repair it."

"I'm for it! Let's get the Going Merry as good as new!" Usopp says while Sanji finishes preparing food for everyone.

"First thing's first, we need to rebuild some of our energy. Dig in guys." Sanji says as he sets a tray of meat, sandwiches, and various other meals for everyone to take.

Rose grabs a sandwich and eats it quickly before she gets up. "I'm gonna go change out of this uniform."

The others casually nod as they continue with their meal. She walks outside and sees the ship's figurehead smiling proudly. She sadly stares at the goat statue as she walks up to it and remembers her conversation with Merry's ghost. _*Don't worry, I'll still keep your secret. They deserve to know what you did though…*_

She softly smiles at the amazing ship as she gently pats the figurehead before she turns to go below deck. On the way to the girls' room, she grabs the two backpacks from the bathroom and brings them with her.

After she changes out of the uniform and into a sky blue, long sleeve shirt, with a black star design on the front of the shirt, dark purple jeans, and black and maroon sneakers, she looks in the mirror and stares at her necklace. She frowns at her crystal as her mind wanders to what to do about her stolen gem.

From what she overheard in the air vents, Jonathan knows a good bit about the taboo. Because of that, she can be sure that the Vice Admiral won't let the marines be careless with it. Still, he can easily use it as bait for her and the crew. Whether or not it'll be with the rest of the treasure could make this a whole new trap that she can't predict. Especially with Lily and her unit more likely being involved with this one.

Rose quietly sighs to herself as she finds this whole situation crazy. Especially since despite everything she's worrying about, she can't deny that she's all the more excited about the thrilling fights that are to come with it. Her lips curl up into a smile as she thinks of the fun battles that she's going to face before she puts her necklace under her shirt to keep it safe.

She straps her new sword onto her black belt, and puts on her red backpack, but leaves the bag with her new research material in the room as she walks back to the deck.

Once outside, she sees the others gathering abandoned material from the dock. "What are you guys doing?"

"We're disguising the Merry to look like a marine battleship before we get the gold!" Usopp says as he starts grabbing some of the abandoned material to cover Merry.

"Cool!" She flies off the ship to join them in getting to work on disguising the ship, and mentally prepares herself for the new adventures are to come in the crew's treasure hunt and their escape from Navarone.

TO BE CONTINUED


	38. Chapter 38

After disguising the ship as a marine battleship, the crew gathers on the dock to discuss the plan to retrieve the gold.

Usopp lays the map flat on the ground for everyone to see, then points to the vault that's at the end of one of the hallways. "You're sure that this is where the gold is Robin?"

The archaeologist smiles at the spot before she answers him. "I am, it's their largest vault and is a dead end, so it's easy to set a trap there."

Nami nods in approval before she looks to the crew. "Alright, it might be dangerous to go in a large group, so we should split up. I need to get my waver before we go too. I hid it over here."

She points to a field that's on the other side of the island.

"Alright then, we'll split into three groups." Usopp says as he looks to Rose, Zoro, Luffy and Robin. "You guys and I will go after the gold."

The pirates nod in agreement as Usopp looks to the chef. "You go with Nami to get the waver."

"That's a wonderful idea Usopp!" Sanji says with hearts in his eyes as he stays close to the navigator, who's also grinning to the plan.

Lastly, Usopp looks to the reindeer with a smirk. "Last but not least Chopper, you get the important job of guarding the ship! When we come back injured, be ready to heal us!"

Chopper freezes at the order before he salutes him with an eager smile. "You got it!"

"Alright, let's get going then!" Luffy says as he starts running out of the dock on his own.

The others in his group follow him with Rose staying in the back of the herd. The wind girl looks back at the crewmates who aren't going to see Nami and Sanji getting to a rowboat.

As Sanji happily grabs some oars to paddle with, Nami gets on the raft and keeps her brown eyes on the chef.

When Nami feels like she's being stared at, she looks to see Rose smirking at her before she points to Sanji with one hand and gives her a thumbs up with the other, as she runs. Nami looks at her in confusion before she looks to Sanji, and freezes when she realizes that Rose is acting the same way she does when she roots for Rose and Luffy to get together. She turns away from the taunting girl in embarrassment and doesn't say anything to add fuel to the fire.

Rose chuckles in victory before she returns to the task at hand and catches up to her group just as they reach the outdoors. The group finds that the sun has long since set, and takes advantage of the cover of night to sneak into the forest path.

Usopp catches up to Luffy and points him in the right direction. "We need to go into that building there!"

Usopp points to the building ahead just when they hear something slashing in the air, and look up to see that a giant shuriken is heading for them!

The sniper screams in fright as he and the others jump back to dodge the ninja weapon.

Robin looks up at the direction it came from and finds a male marine in the trees, who's smirking at them while holding another shuriken, that's half as small as the last one. "Looks like this base has ninjas now."

"NINJAS?!" Luffy and Usopp yell in shock as they jump to dodge a pair of kunais that was aimed for their heads. They make a run for it with Robin putting the marine she found in a clutch until he lost consciousness.

Zoro blocks three incoming kunai, that came from another direction, with his swords. "How many of them are there?!"

Rose widens her eyes at the attack, when she realizes that this is an attack from the weapon's unit. As soon as she opens her mouth to say something, a few throwing stars phase through her and hit the tree to her right.

The wind girl looks at the weapons in shock of how they're not made of sea stone like Lily's knives and Noah's arm sword. _*So not all of their weapons are sea stone. I should still keep my guard up.*_

Robin tries to find more of the marines as they run, but they're more well-hidden than the one she took down. As she keeps searching, a kunai comes flying to her head, but Rose blocks the blow with her wind.

"Just focus on getting inside!" Rose says as she stays in the back of the group, and creates a small cyclone around the five of them to protect them from the projectile weapons.

Luffy laughs in victory when he sees that the ninja tools aren't touching them thanks to the barrier. "Way to go Rose!"

Rose chuckles at the praise as she surveys the area for more knives coming at them. However, she stops searching when her eyes spot a familiar blue light shining from one of the windows high up on the cliffside. _*So that's where it is!*_

She shakes her head to keep herself focused when another blue light shines in a different window.

The rest of the group widens their eyes at the new light when they see one more light illuminating after another until six blue lights shine from different sides of the base's cliffside windows.

"Whoa, cool!" Luffy says as he admires the glowing lights that are spread all around the circular island.

"What's this?" Robin asks because she has no idea in what's going on.

"Maybe they're light signals?" Usopp wonders before he sees the doorway to get inside coming to view, but the gates are starting to close. "Never mind that, we gotta go!"

The others see that the giant doors are sliding to close, so they ignore the lights and rush to the door.

Zoro begins to recognize the glow from Rose's experiment and looks back to see Rose keeping her head down to avoid the temptation of falling for the trap.

He gets taken aback by how she's not immediately leaving and giving them some excuse, like when she left them in Skypiea. He tries not to think about it and looks ahead to see that the door is almost halfway closed with them still too far.

Before he could say anything, he feels his feet no longer on the ground as he and the others start getting carried by Rose's wind. The others look back at her in shock as she flies behind them and stops her barrier when she sees no more tools being thrown.

She doesn't say anything as she uses her wind to throw her crewmates through the doors but just as she reaches the door, it closes to her face.

She groans at the closed door as she finds no way for her to open it back up. She doesn't have any time to search for a way in though, because she hears a cannon fire and sees a net being launched at her from one of the windows holding the blue light! She flies up to avoid getting caught in the sea stone net again, but as soon as she dodged, another one is fired at her for her to evade without rest.

As she's avoiding the sea stone nets, the other pirates groan from the rough throw as they fall on their sides in the hallway. Luffy immediately gets up and sees that Rose didn't make it. He becomes worried for the astronomer and punches the metal door, but it won't open. "Rose, you ok?!"

"I'm fine! I'll take care of the ninjas and find my way back to Merry!" Rose calls out from the other side to keep them from worrying.

The others freeze when they hear cannon fire, but Rose calls out to them again. "This is nothing! Just get the fucking gold!"

Luffy smiles at how she's ok before he calls out to her. "Ok, kick their asses!"

"With pleasure captain!" Rose says as she uses her wind to block the sea stone nets that are flying at her from various directions.

Luffy, Robin, and Usopp start going on ahead while Zoro stares at the door.

He knows that Rose can take care of herself, but he knows that the trap is made especially for her. Because of that, he has a bad feeling about leaving her alone out there.

Robin sees that the swordsman is hesitating and looks at him in confusion. "Something wrong Swordsman-kun?"

He snaps out of it to her voice, and turns to her with a normal scowl. "I'm fine, let's go..."

Robin nods with a small grin as they go catch up to the others.

As they run to their initial goal, the swordsman does his best to focus on the task at hand, then back up the wind girl when they're done.

* * *

Rose continues to fly around to avoid the nets that keeps flying at her one after another, so she descends to the forest to try to come up with a strategy. She keeps floating off the ground, low enough to stay hidden in the trees, but she doesn't have time to think when Marta jumps out of the tree with a sword in hand.

Rose descends to the ground to dodge the blow, in case the weapon was made of sea stone, and smirks at the marine girl that tried to jump her. "Pretty interesting strategy your unit's come up with. Keeping half the group with the net launchers, so I can't fly freely, and the other half on the ground to jump me with weapons. Does that sum it up right, Marta was it?"

Marta narrows her brown eyes on the wind girl as she gets in a stance. "You forgot one detail. Your gem is hidden in one of the rooms with the glowing windows where our net launchers are based. Even if you can dodge the nets the operators are equipped to stop you, so you only have three options: surrender, fly up to get caught in the nets, or face all of us here."

"All of us?" Rose asks before she hears footsteps all around her until she finds herself surrounded by at least thirty armed marines. However, she can't find her doppelganger in the crowd, and with her crew also at a safe distance, she finds no need to hold back on them.

She snickers at the options, and answers her as if this is a normal conversation. "Thanks for the options, but you forgot one. I go take back what's mine, and leave you to your natural disaster training."

The marines look at her in confusion before she snaps her fingers with her right hand to create a small tornado and flies into the air.

The marines register the growing tornado for a second before they put their weapons away and make a run for it. They barely got far though, because the twister quickly grew into the size of the trees and dragged the soldiers with them in its path.

On the base's cliffsides, where the six net launchers are based at the balconies on different sides of the cliffs, the marines are completely taken aback by the twister that's roaming the woods where their friends are. The twister is only strong enough to bend the trees in its path, but it's enough to take their comrades on a ride that they'll never forget.

"HOLY FUCKING SHIT! WE GOTTA GET DOWN THERE!" One of the operators for the net cannon turns around to leave, but his partner stops him.

"We can't do anything to stop that! We need to take care of the wind girl!"

"How about I take care of you instead?" The two men freeze at the feminine voice by the window and slowly turn to the net launcher, to see their target perched on their weapon with a devilish smirk. They jump back in shock of how she snuck up on them as she surveys the room.

Rose finds a lantern sitting at the table from behind the window with blue glass surrounding the flame to make it's light resemble the Timore Comet's glow. _*Fuck, so that's how they're doing it! First thing's first, I gotta take care of the net launchers.*_

The girl acts like she doesn't have a care in the world as she turns to the two frozen men with a frightening look in her eyes. "Either you run off now without a scratch or get your asses kicked. Your choice."

The two marines flinch at the terrifying look, but they regain their courage when they remember what she did to their unit. Without a moment's hesitation, one of them takes out a chain scythe, that reminds Rose of Black Star's weapon, and the other takes out twin blades from the sheathes on his belt.

"We refuse to submit to a pirate!" The chain scythe wielder yells out as he launches his weapon.

Rose flies jumps off the net launcher and dodges the scythe, in case his weapon is made of sea stone, and sees the swordsman charging at her.

"You're gonna pay for what you did to our comrades!" He swings his blades from both sides, but he left himself wide open for Rose to turn her arm into wind and launch a wind blast to his stomach. The soldier dry hacks at the hit as it sends him flying backwards until he slams to the wall hard enough to lose consciousness.

His partner throws the chain at her again, so Rose blocks it with her wind arm. However, the chain truly is made of sea stone, and when it made contact with Rose's hand, both her wind arms turned back to normal. Rose groans at the new fatigue she feels as the chain wraps around the skin of her wrist three times.

She tries to free her arm, but the officer stops her by pulling the other half of his chain scythe with her going with it. When she's close, he grabs her free arm and pins her back to the wall. "It's over."

Rose chuckles at the soldier as she looks up at the taller man. "Not too shitty marine, but the game's not over until the cuffs are on."

He immediately grows furious at how she's treating her capture like a joke. "You think this is a ga-AAAHH!" The man shrieks to as high a pitch as a soprano when the pirate knees him in the balls as hard as possible!

The poor soldier drops his weapon, lets go of Rose's arm, and hunches over enough for Rose to punch him in the nose as hard as possible with her chain wrapped arm.

He falls unconscious with a nosebleed while Rose unwraps the sea stone off her arm. Once she's free of the weakening stone, she picks up the chain scythe with a gust of wind and throws it out the window until it lands in the water.

The feeling of satisfaction she has to get rid of it immediately fades when sees that the tornado is still out there, and is starting to head in the direction of the water. She grows worried about it turning into a whirlpool once it hits the ocean, so she snaps her fingers with her left hand and lets it grows in her hands before she throws the twister outside.

The new tornado continued to grow in the air before it crashed into the tornado and cancelled both of them out.

The airsick marines start falling out of midair, but are caught in the fluffy brushes of the trees instead of the hard ground.

Rose grins in relief that she stopped the twister before she grabs the lantern, and blows out the flame. "One down, five to go!"

She becomes giddy at how much fun she's having as she flies on a gust of warm air, and goes off to take down the other net operators to search for her gem.

* * *

Luffy and his group reached the vault, only to find it filled with soldiers instead of their treasure. They were able to easily power through the men to leave the room, and now they're making a run for it with a dozen marines on their tail!

Luffy looks back at the enraged marines with a carefree grin as he stops running and pulls back his fist. "GUM GUM PISTOL!"

He pulls his fist forward to punch a marine in the gut to send him flying backwards and taking the two soldiers behind him with him.

Usopp and Robin look back to see that Luffy won't leave until they're all down, so they stop running to back up the captain. Usopp grabs his slingshot and aims for the two men who are about "This should take care of them! Usopp exploding star!"

He shoots tiny explosions off his slingshots to blast the soldiers. A few of them were knocked out from the blast while Robin crosses her arms over her chest. "Tres fleur."

Three arms grew on the remaining soldiers and put them in a clutch until they passed out.

Luffy laughs at the fun fight as he finds that there's no one else to face. "Man, that was fun. So, what's next?"

Usopp tiredly sighs at his carefree attitude as he puts his slingshot away. "We need to figure out where they hid the gold."

"We also need to find Swordsman-kun." Robin says which makes the other two pirates look back in shock to find Zoro missing.

"HOW DID HE GET LOST SO QUICK?!" Usopp asks, but Luffy just laughs it off as he runs ahead.

"We can find him while we search for the gold! Let's go!" The captain calls out to them while the others follow him through the halls.

Meanwhile, Zoro managed to get himself up to the higher levels of the base and is in no way near his other crewmates. He stops running when he looks back to find himself alone and tilts his head in confusion. "How the hell did everyone get so lost?"

He groans at the situation as he goes to turn around, but freezes when he hears a voice coming from a few doors down.

"Sir, we ran out of nets!"

Zoro freezes at the sound of Lily's voice and goes to the door when her leader starts talking.

"Shit, Wind Rider's heading here next too!"

Zoro perks up at the mention of his crew mate's epithet and looks through the crack of the door to see Lily and Noah at the balcony with a net launcher. His eyes scan the dimly room and stop when he sees a small glass case on a small table behind the window with a blue glow emanating from it.

The blue glow is too strong for him to get a clear view of the source, but he doesn't doubt that Rose's stolen stone is inside that case.

Noah doesn't notice the new guest at the door when a machine gun barrel pops out of the wrist of his metal arm. He aims at the wind girl, who's flying at them at top speed after she took down the third net launcher from across the forest, and fires three green energy blasts at her.

Rose smirks at the shots, because she knows that she's found Noah, and turns both her arms into air. She shoots her wind straight at the energy spheres, and not only stops them from coming at her, but redirects them to the cliff wall next to their window!

When Noah and Lily see where they're going, they run inside to avoid getting blasted in the explosion.

Zoro widens his eyes at the blast, but sees that there's still an opening in the window.

Lily grabs her daggers from her boots while Noah retracts the machine gun and lets sword pop out from the back of his arm.

 _*He's a cyborg?!*_ Zoro thinks in shock as he watches them approach the window just as Rose flies in with her arms still strong gusts of wind.

Both marines almost flinch at the frightening look in Rose's eyes as she's still holding a smirk on her face. "So, you two are the final bosses huh? As much as I'd love a good fight, I don't have the time."

She goes to use her wind to life up the box, but freezes when it won't levitate. Even the table wouldn't float when she tries to use more wind on it.

"Nice try, but we super glued the case to the table and screwed the table to the floor!" Lily says as she charges at her, but Rose ducks to dodge the knives and kicks her in the side to knock her down.

Noah charges at her and swings his sea stone sword, but she jumps back to dodge the blow. Before Noah could take another swing, Rose sends him flying straight to the right until he's slammed into a bookshelf. He gets up, but Rose sends him flying straight up until he's slammed into the ceiling and is knocked out.

Lily widens her eyes in horror of how she easily took him down, as Rose starts gently sets him down, then looks at the stone in the case. She knows that she'll be next if she doesn't do something, so she breaks open the locked case with the hilt of her dagger and grabs the freezing cold gem.

Rose gets out of her adrenaline high when she heard the glass breaking and sees her doppelganger holding onto the gem. Her blood runs cold at the sight, because if she uses her wind on her, the stone could be activated by mistake. She doesn't want to run that risk, so she turns her arms back to normal and raises them defensively. "Don't do anything rash Lily!"

Lily doesn't listen to her as she points her knife to her with one hand and holds the stone with the other. "Oh, like killing my Lieutenant?!"

"He's not dead, he's knocked out!" Rose roughly nudges his side with the back of her foot, which earns a groan from the defeated lieutenant. "See? And your other comrades are fine too. A few scrapes and bruises, but they'll live. I'm not here to kill anyone, I just want my stone back."

Lily calms down a little, but she knows that she can't win against her, so she tries to buy time for any reinforcements to come. "Even if I believe you, I don't understand. Why are you living like this? If anything you told me last night was true, then you'd be a lot happier as an astronomer."

Zoro stays quiet at the confrontation and watches how this plays out from his hiding spot.

Rose's slightly taken aback by the question, but uses it as a way to scare her into dropping her sample. "I promise you that everything I told you about astronomy was true. I am an astronomer by heart, but the World Government has considered my research on Hell's comet a taboo ever since the Spiriting Night."

She points to the glowing stone in Lily's hand. "That rock you're holding is the one that the researchers were studying that night. They didn't know about the comet back then, so they allowed the samples to absorb its energy, and got spirited away to an absolute hell. You'll suffer the same fate, if you don't stop holding it."

Lily tenses up at the story, but refuses to let her cold fingers release the stone. "I'm not letting you use this to hurt people!"

"If I was going to use this to hurt others, then why would I be fucking telling you this?!" Lily flinches at the pirate's angry tone, but Rose barely cares as she keeps going. "I mean goddammit! Can't you see that I'm trying to make sure you don't become one of the victims?!"

"Why would you care?!"

Rose is incredibly frustrated by her stubbornness, but she's more worried more about the stone. The comet's power could be triggered at any time on her doppelganger if she doesn't let go, and that alone terrifies her. Especially since Rose can only think of one tactic to get her to release the stone...

A small, freezing cold breeze blows off of Rose, and makes both Zoro and the marine slightly shiver from the fear she's feeling. Rose barely notices the shivers as she pulls her necklace out from under her shirt and reveals her treasured jewel to the marine. "I care, because I don't want what happened to my family to happen to you…"

Lily widens her eyes at the answer as Rose keeps going. "When I said that I was trying to figure out how I came here, I meant it. I'm not from this world. What happened to the researchers that disappeared that night happened to me too, and I've been trying to learn how this happened ever since. I've managed to learn how to leave, but I can't promise that you'll still be here if that gem starts working on you. Please, you need to trust me and hand it over..."

Both Zoro and Lily have no idea on how to react to this. They look at this once proud warrior, but all they see now is a lonely girl who doesn't want anyone to go through the kind of pain that she's gone through.

Both of them still feel the freezing cold breeze flying out of the girl and shake from the chill, or is it from the fear that she's feeling?

Regardless, there's no way that the marine can be convinced that this is an act, so she lifts her hand up, and opens her palm to reveal Rose's sample. "Don't make me regret trusting you. Take this and get out of here..."

Rose slowly nods with a small smile as her mood breeze fades away. She quickly uses her wind to levitate the glowing rock out of her hands and at a safe distance from her doppelganger. "Thank you."

As she brings the stone closer to her, she doesn't realize that Noah is waking up right behind her. She finds the tin box, that the stone was taken from, on the counter and goes to put it inside.

Noah looks to his subordinate and puts a finger to his lips to indicate her to stay silent. She slowly nods with guilt beginning to well up inside her for what they're going to do to Rose, and stays back.

Rose puts the gem inside and closes it up, but freezes when she sees a large shadow slowly coming up from behind her.

She gets ready to use her wind just as Noah's about to strike down with his sword, but she stops when she turns around to see Zoro in front of her with his swords blocking Noah's strike!

"Z-Zoro?!" Rose asks in shock and looks to the open door that he came out from. "When did you get here?!"

Zoro pushes the marine off of him and glares at the oblivious girl. "I've been here since before you showed up! And what kind of idiot turns her back on the enemy?!"

Rose twitches an eyebrow at the complaint and returns the angry look. "Excuse me?! I knocked out the bastard first!"

"Yea, and you left the girl alone after she gave you the rock! She could've easily stabbed you in the back!"

"She can't hurt me! Or did you forget that I'm a fucking logia type?!"

"Oh I remember, like when you and Luffy got caught in a net!"

"It was fucking made with sea stone, you green dengas!"

"What the hell is a dengas, you airhead?!"

"What'd you call me?!"

As Rose and Zoro continue their battle of insults, Noah and Lily can watch as they sweat drop at the fact that they're being ignored.

Noah snaps himself out of it first, and glares at the bickering pirates. "Will you two shut up and-?!"

"You shut up!" Zoro and Rose both call out to him, before Rose uses her wind to send him flying backwards until he's slammed to the wall and gets knocked out again.

Lily drops her jaw at the attack before Rose narrows her eyes at her. "Are you going to fucking try something too?!"

Lily looks to the sea stone knife in her hand, then to the two powerful pirates in front of her. She turns towards her leader, and drops her weapon before she goes to his side. "I would, but I'm too busy getting my Lieutenant to an infirmary."

She grabs his human arm and wraps it around her shoulders, before she grabs his waist with her other arm and picks him up. She starts half dragging him to the door, but stops to say one last thing to the pirate that shares her face. "I still hate pirates, but I won't report your origins, as payment for saving me. I can't promise the same from my leader though, so get ready to become a prime target of the World Government."

"I've been ready since I joined the crew." Rose says as she puts her box in her bag, then looks outside the window to see the disguised Merry sailing on the lake. "Still, thank you for everything. I'm glad we had a chance to be friends before enemies."

The marine girl refuses to look back to see Rose and Zoro flying out the window, and leaves with her lieutenant. The cadet doesn't stop for anything as she keeps her bangs shadowed over her emerald eyes to hide the tears that are pooling in them. "Dang it, It'd have been better if she was a ghost…"

She storms off with her unconscious leader, with her thoughts lingering on the loss of the unit's prey.

Meanwhile, both Rose and Zoro are experiencing the longest, most awkward, moment of silence in their entire lives, as they're flying from the trap and towards the ship. Rose knew that he heard the truth and has no idea what he's thinking under his scowl. "Look, Zoro, about what you heard..."

"Is it true?" Zoro asks, with his eyes moving to her.

Rose timidly nods as she keeps her head down. "Yea, it's true…"

Zoro quietly sighs at the weird situation as he looks to the distant ship. "Alright, I need time to process this. After we escape, we'll talk about it more."

Rose looks to him with mild shock, because she expected a much worse reaction from him. "You don't seem too freaked out about this."

Zoro groans when he remembers how mad he was about her keeping secrets, and feels stupid about it now. "I knew you were hiding something when you kept your experiment a secret, but didn't expect it to be this."

Rose widens her eyes at the explanation, but when she remembers how pissy he was acting towards her since they escaped Navarone's prison, she understands. Regardless, now that her secret's out, she starts becoming afraid of what's going to happen now. "I know it's a lot to ask, but please don't tell the others. It's not a good time for them to know yet."

Zoro shivers on the sudden coldness in the wind he's flying on, and rubs his arms to warm up. "Alright, I won't, so quit it with the cold wind! I'm freezing!"

Rose freezes at the complaint and takes a deep breath to calm herself down enough for her wind to warm up. _*Wait, I was only feeling scared. If fear made a colder wind than sad then…*_

Her lips curl up into a smile before she starts laughing.

Zoro flinches at the sudden mood swing and starts worrying about her mental state. "What the-?! I already said I won't tell! What's the matter with you?!"

She shakes her head as she lowers her laughing down to light giggles. "I'm just laughing at the irony. It turns out Luffy won our bet long before the battle with Crocodile."

He raises an eyebrow at the crazy girl's explanation before they land on the deck of the ship where the others are working to leave.

"There you guys are!" Sanji says as he runs down the stairs. "What happened?"

"We got separated and fought a lieutenant." Rose says when she sees everyone aboard, except for the navigator and captain. "What happened to Nami and Luffy?"

The chef swoons at Nami's name being called before he looks out to the coastline to try to find her. "We found her waver, and regrouped with the others when they came back empty-handed. Nami-san figured out another spot that they could've hidden it and went to investigate it with Luffy. She ordered us to keep sailing on in disguise in hopes of you guys finding us. She really is a genius~!"

Zoro rolls his eyes at the chef's annoying habits. "Either that or you're an idiot."

Sanji snaps out of his love filled daze from the insult and gets in a leg and sword fight with Zoro.

Rose chuckles at the fight before she surveys the area until they see Nami and Luffy riding down the coastline on the waver with a large sack of gold onboard.

"Hey guys!" Nami calls out to them as she uses the waver to hop off the cliffside to fly towards them. Rose catches them with a gust of wind and gently sets the small boat down.

Luffy happily grins at the catch as he jumps off the waver. "Thanks for the catch."

Rose nods before she grins at him. "Is there anything else we need to do here captain?"

He shakes his head before he points ahead. "Nope, let's go!"

"Yea!" The others agree as they get to work in sailing off. They see two warships up ahead, but with their disguise the navy hasn't opened fire at them.

Rose flies up to the sails and blasts wind onto them, so that they're sailing at full speed in between both ships just as the disguise starts to shed off.

The marines onboard hesitate to attack the ship as they're sailing past them, and immediately regret it when the disguise is removed to reveal their target.

Robin giggles at the soldiers' shock stays to the back of the ship to observe the situation with Usopp.

The rest of the boys get to work on keeping the ship on the right course while Nami navigates the ship.

Luffy laughs at how fast they're going. "Keep it up guys! We're almost out!"

No one gives in as they sail toward their escape route like there's no tomorrow!

* * *

Up in Vice Admiral Jonathan's office, the leader of the base sits relaxes at the balcony of the base.

Which is the exact opposite of how the Navy inspector is feeling because he just watched the men, he had patrolling the waters, let themselves be hoodwinked by the Merry's disguise. "I can't believe those idiots!"

The inspector glares at Jonathan's nonchalant attitude. "And you! I hope you can come up with a good explanation for how you failed!"

A few of the soldiers, who are on standby in his office, glare at the inspector from behind his back because it was the inspector's interference with the trap for Luffy's group that got them to escape.

Jonathan doesn't pay any mind to the inspector's discontent as he looks to the clock to see that it's almost 9:00 at night. "I didn't fail yet Inspector Shepherd. There's still one more trap that this base has left."

Shepherd calms down at the answer and looks at him in confusion. "What kind of trap?"

"I'll leave that as a surprise. The 9:00 pm net should be sprung into action at any moment now." Jonathan finishes when he sees that the clock has struck to 9 o'clock.

* * *

As the crew continues to sail in the lake, they begin to see the sea gate that Luffy blew open.

Luffy laughs in excitement from his seat on Merry's head. "Finally, let's get out of here!"

"Hold on captain-san, something's not right." Robin says as she and Usopp stare at their pursuers and see the ships not moving and turning away from them.

"Are they dropping their anchors?" Nami asks as she joins them at the back of the ship.

"Maybe they gave up?" Sanji wonders, but he knows that would be too easy for them.

Usopp laughs in pride as he looks ahead. "They must've! We're all too strong for them!"

Rose stops using her wind on the sails to look back at the pursuers, and furrows her eyebrows in thought of what she remembered happening when she saw this in the anime back home. _*That's right there was one more trap, but what was it?*_

She keeps thinking hard until she finally remembers the upcoming trap that's waiting for them. "Motherfucker!"

She lands on the deck and looks down at the water to see that the tide's getting stronger. "Shit, we're in another trap!"

"What kind of trap?" Chopper asks as he and Nami look down at the water with her.

"One to do with the-! Ah!" Rose and the others yell in shock when the tides become so strong that they're carrying the ship off course from the sea gate!

"Dammit, the rudder's not working!" Zoro says as he tries to steer, but the current is too strong for them to control the ship.

"We're caught in the tides!" Nami yells out in horror as she and the others hold onto whatever's close to keep them from going overboard.

Meanwhile, Jonathan and Shepherd are watching the show from the balcony of his office.

"So, your net is the tide?" Shepherd asks in surprise of how the crew got caught so easily.

Jonathan chuckles at his shock as he keeps his eyes to the Merry. "That's right, no matter how skilled their navigator may be, they can't escape this."

Shepherd grows furious at how the Vice Admiral will take the credit for the capture, so he turns away from him. "I need to take care of something."

Jonathan raises an eyebrow at the inspector's departure, but pays it no mind because if he tries something, he knows it'll only end well for his base.

Meanwhile, the ship continues to be dragged through the tide, but not strong enough to toss anyone around anymore. Nami grabs her map of the base to see what's going on and starts to understand what's happening. "Dammit, so that's it."

"What's going on?" Sanji asks as he approaches her to look at the map.

She points to the gate and begins to explain. "This is why they used a bay full of shallow reefs as a port! They've learned to read the different tides through the sea gate, so that they can learn when to come in and out of the base without getting stuck. We sailed at the wrong time, so now we're going to be stuck in shallow waters."

The ship begins to shake when the waters start becoming shallow and they grab onto something.

Luffy almost falls off on Merry's head from the sudden stop, but Rose catches him on a gust and brings him to her side.

"Hasn't the Merry suffered enough?!" Usopp cries out as the Merry runs on the ground until it's finally at a stop.

Half of the dizzy crew looks down to see that the ship is no longer on the water, but stranded on dry land.

Usopp runs below deck to see if any holes were made while Rose sets Luffy on the deck. "You ok Luffy?"

The captain nods before they hear Usopp yelling out. "GUYS, WE GOT A HUGE HOLE HERE!"

Everyone runs below deck and sees Usopp almost crying from the huge hole in the hull that can be mistaken as a new window.

Rose sighs at the damage as she looks outside from the hole. "We might be able to patch it up before the next tide."

Usopp perks up at the possibility before he digs through his bag for his tools. "Yea, but we need to hurry!"

Nami turns to leave. "We need to be on the lookout for the marines in the meantime! We're all sitting ducks here!"

The rest of the guys understand as they go to leave, but stop when they see lights shining from the hole. They go look outside from the hole to see that spotlights are shining on then with cannons from the cliffside are aiming straight at them.

"Attention Straw Hat Luffy and his crew!" The pirates freeze at Vice Admiral Jonathan's voice being heard from the base's intercoms. "You've all fought well against Navarone's fortress! I respect you for coming so far, even though you're the enemy! However, this is checkmate!"

Usopp, Chopper and Nami become frightened of the situation, while the rest of the crew are trying to come up with a solution or are getting ready to fight as Jonathan continues. "You've got nowhere to run and you're surrounded! If you surrender now, then I'll make you a deal! You, Roronoa Zoro and Wind Rider Rose are the only ones with bounties! If you three surrender, then I'll guarantee the safety of the rest of your crew! If you try to escape though, there will be no mercy! You have ten minutes before we take you by force!"

Nami snaps out of her fear and turns to Rose in shock. "You have a bounty?!"

The astronomer casually shrugs at the question. "Just because of my devil fruit. It's nowhere near as big as Luffy and Zoro's."

Rose ignores the rest of the crew's surprise as she turns to the sniper. "Hey Usopp, do you have your impact dial?"

Usopp freezes at this as he looks through his bag and finds it. "Yea, but why would…" He trails off when he starts coming up with a plan for them to escape and happily smiles. "That's it! I've been absorbing impacts with this dial since Skypiea! We can blast the Merry out of here!"

The others smile at the plan while Nami looks outside. "That's perfect! If it can get us over the cliff then we'll reach the ocean!"

Sanji looks at the dial and frowns at the plan. "Yea, but one shot won't be enough. Besides, we still got the hole to deal with."

"Shouldn't we be ok if we use the octopus balloon?" Rose asks them.

Robin nods to the idea. "That could work."

Chopper grins to the idea. "Yea, we can use breath and flame dials along with Rose's wind."

Nami brightly smiles at the plan. "That's perfect! Once we're out of here, we can use the balloon to keep the ship flying until we fix the hole."

"But we don't have the octopus." Zoro says which causes everyone to freeze expect for Luffy.

Chopper sighs in disappointment of the plan not working. "Too bad we don't have it."

Nami nods in agreement. "Yea..."

"Damn octopus…" Sanji says.

"Where did it go?" Robin asks.

"I have it." Luffy says, but no one fully listens yet as they keep talking.

"Oh, he has it." Rose says.

"Right, Luffy has it." Zoro says.

"Luffy has it?" Usopp asks.

"That's what he said." Chopper answers.

The rest of the crew finally stops talking when Luffy's answer finally sinks in, and they turn to him with wide eyes. "You have it?! Where?!"

Luffy digs into the front side of his pants until he pulls out the deflated octopus from it.

Rose covers her face from the sight, with a small blush on her face, while the others show a mix of shock and disgust.

"Why the hell was it in your pants?!" Nami angrily asks.

Luffy completely ignores the tension as he innocently smiles at them. "I was keeping him safe after I found him in the base."

"Didn't it feel weird down there?" Zoro asks as he looks at his pants.

"Down where?" Luffy asks before he notices Rose's blush and tilts his head in confusion. "Hey, you ok?"

"Yea, I'm fine. It's a little warm..." Rose says as she turns away from him. _*This boy is too innocent for this world...*_

Robin giggles at how everything played out. "Now that we have the octopus, we should get it ready to use. Right Long Nose-kun?"

Usopp nods as he looks down at the impact dial. "Right, but wait who's going to use it to…"

He trails off when he sees everyone staring at him with a mischievous gleam in their eyes. "Uh, why are you all looking at me like that?"

"Who does the impact dial belong to?" Luffy asks with his eyes still on Usopp.

"It's Usopp's dial." Zoro answers.

"He has experience with it too, right?" Robin asks.

Rose nods at the question. "Oh yea, he's a pro at using this dial."

"Given those facts, it's only fair that he should be the one to do it." Sanji says.

"Thanks for volunteering Usopp." Nami says with a smirk.

"You really are amazing!" Chopper says with more of a look of admiration than of mischief.

Usopp shivers in fear of them all ganging up on him while Zoro chuckles. "Don't worry Usopp, we'll help you get ready."

"And when your bones break, Doctor-kun will fix you up." Robin says as if she didn't just say something horrific.

"NOOO~!" Usopp cries out in horror, but he has no choice when Zoro, Sanji, and Luffy hold him down so that he doesn't run.

Nami begrudgingly takes the octopus and leads the rest of the crew out to the deck to get the ship ready to fly.

* * *

Ten minutes came and went since Jonathan has given the pirates the chance to surrender, so he goes to his den den mushi to call the Sergeant who's in charge of the cannons. "Prepare to fire at the crew."

"Yes sir." The Sergeant answers before he turns to his men. "Prepare to fire!"

The soldiers do as they're commanded and get ready to fire the cannon.

Meanwhile, the crew is working nonstop to get the octopus balloon ready.

Nami sets down the cleaned-up octopus on the deck with her, Chopper, Rose and Robin. "Are you guys ready?"

"Yea, I'm all set!" Chopper says as he turns into heavy point with a flame dial in his hand.

"I'm ready as well." Robin says as she holds a breath dial that's filled with Rose's wind in both her hands.

Rose nods to herself as she cracks her knuckles. "Let's get Merry soaring again."

"Alright!" Nami says as she calls down to the guys who are still below deck. "Guys, we're ready when you are!"

"I'm not ready!" Usopp cries out as he tries to break free, but Zoro, Luffy and Sanji are keeping him in place. "Come on guys! This is gonna hurt like crazy!"

"It'll be fine Usopp!" Luffy says as he holds his shoulders while Sanji keeps a hold of his arm, that has the impact dial strapped to his hand, and Zoro holds his torso to keep him from running.

The boys manage to keep their squirming sniper in place as Sanji starts the countdown. "Three!"

"Two!" Zoro says with Luffy finishing it.

"One!" The captain says before Zoro touches Usopp's dial and creates a blast through the hole they made that's large enough to send the ship flying!

The marines manning the cannons are completely speechless at the sight as they watch the ship soar through the sky.

Down by the reefs, Inspector Shepherd is also shocked at the sight, but he's the first to snap out of it and glares at the ship with a giant bazooka in his hands. "Oh no you don't, Straw Hats! I'm the one who's gonna take you down!"

He gets ready to aim at the ship just when the vessel starts to lose altitude.

"I think it's time guys!" Rose says as she looks at their descending height.

"Right!" Nami says before she turns to Robin. "Do it Robin!"

"Alright." Robin uses her devil fruit to sprout arms from eight different directions of the outside of the ship, and continues to sprout one after the other from those spots to make a vine long enough to reach the octopus. The last arms of each vine grab a tentacle and stretch them out while Rose turns both her arms into strong gusts of air and blasts them into the octopus to start inflating it.

Rose does the best she can to get it to inflate as fast as possible while Robin and Chopper use their dials to help her out. Their work is paying off because it's growing bigger by the minute, but it's still descending towards the water.

Nami uses her breath dial on the balloon to back them up, and gets worried that they're not gonna make it. "Come on…"

The descent continues to grow slower as the balloon continues to grow, but it's still getting closer to the lake.

Rose's wind arms start growing weaker from exhaustion, but she refuses to stop. After all she went through at this base she won't let this be how it ends, so she takes a deep breath and lets a blast of wind fly out of her mouth to back up her arms.

The others look at her in shock, but they don't stop using the dials until the ship begins to rise just before the boat could touch the water!

Chopper happily smiles as they continue to rise and start their escape through the air. "We did it!"

Rose stops blasting her wind out of her mouth, and lets her arms turn back to normal, before she sits down with her back to the mast. "Thank god…"

Robin uses her arms to tie the octopus' tentacles to the ship's railings, then looks down at the tired girl and hands her back the dial she borrowed. "Thank you for your help Wind-chan."

Rose can only give her a thumbs up and stay seated, while the boys come back up as they drag a collapsed Usopp with them.

"Hey Chopper, we need your help with Usopp!" Sanji says as the reindeer returns to brain point and runs over the treat the sniper's injuries from using the impact dial.

Luffy happily laughs at how high they're going when he sees that they're getting close to the top of the cliffs. "Alright guys! Let's set sail!"

The others cheer in agreement, but when Rose goes to get up Nami gently pushes her shoulders down so that she's still seated. "Take a break already, you've done enough."

Rose blinks at the order before she nods and stays seated, because she has no room to argue in the exhausted state she's in.

Nami grins in satisfaction before she goes off to make sure that they're heading in the right direction.

Down at the base, Vice Admiral Jonathan is indeed impressed by the crew's takeoff, but he expected this so he gives his Sergeant a call. "As soon as they're in firing range shoot them down! Be sure to aim for the balloon and not for the ship! I want to take them alive!"

"Roger that." The Sergeant says, but as soon as he hangs up, he tiredly sighs. "Man, this is a tall order."

He looks to see that the ship's getting close to their shooting range and turns to his canon operators. "Fire a warning shot! If they don't stop, then aim for the balloon."

"Yes sir!" The marine says as he gets into position.

Down on the reefs across from the cannons though, Inspector Shepherd refuses to give the crew a warning shot as he finally gets a clean shot. "You're mine now Straw Hats!"

He pulls the trigger, but the bazooka is so big that he couldn't keep a good hold on it after the shot, so the ammo blasts off in all random directions! The shot manages to not only miss the Going Merry, but directly hits the top of the cliffside and causes a landslide to come tumbling down at the cannons!

The operators scream in fright as they run inside and avoid getting hurt from the landslide, but the cannons are too damaged to stop the Straw Hats now.

Jonathan tiredly sighs at the damage that he sees through his binoculars and shakes his head in disappointment. "I should've known he interfered. Inspector Shepherd ruined the trap…"

The pirates look at the damage in confusion to see that they can get away now.

"What happened?" Luffy asks with the others wondering the same thing.

Nami shrugs it off as they manage to fly high enough to go over the base's walls. "It doesn't matter, let's get out of here while the going is good!"

The others quickly agree as they continue to sail on.

Rose manages to get enough energy to stand, so she gets up, and goes to the railing for a better view. When she looks around the base one last time, she freezes when she sees her doppelganger on one of the high-level windows of the base.

Lily refuses to look down at the terrifying height and keeps her eyes on the flying ship to see it off. When she spots her freckled look-alike at the railing, she says nothing to her. The marine wanted to say something, anything, but she couldn't find any words for the pirate that has her face.

Rose however, grows happy that she's seeing her off and waves at her.

Lily widens her green eyes at the friendly farewell, and shyly lifts her hand up for a small wave before she rushes inside.

Rose chuckles at the shy retreat when the ship manages to soar above the cliff.

When the Merry flies over the wall to reach the open sea, the crew happily smiles at the feeling of freedom as they watch the sun rising for a new morning.

Sanji looks back at the base that they were trapped in, and hums in interest of the island's view from this height. "Wow, the base's impressive up close and up high."

"Whoa, it really is!" Chopper says in shock of how the island looks from up there, after he finishes bandaging Usopp's arm.

Rose grabs her camera from her bag and starts taking photos of the base while Luffy happily waves the base goodbye. "So long fortress guy!"

Usopp looks back at the abled cannons on the outside of the base, and looks at them in confusion. "Not that I'm ungrateful that it's over, but why aren't they shooting at us?"

"Their cannons can't reach something of this altitude." Robin says with a calm smile.

"So, it's finally over." Nami says in relief when she sees that no more ships are chasing them.

"Now that we're safe, I'm gonna go fix the hull." Usopp says with Chopper following along to help.

"Sanji! I'm hungry!" Luffy says with a smile.

"Yea, yea, I'll make something." Sanji says as he goes inside to whip something up with the captain following him inside.

Robin and Nami go inside to get some rest from the long night, with Rose and Zoro staying behind on the deck.

Rose stops taking pictures and finally notices that they're the only ones around. Before she could say anything, the swordsman points to the crow's nest. "Meet me there tonight to talk. It's your turn for night watch, right?"

The wind girl nods as she looks up to her favorite part of the ship. "Y-yea, that can work. I'll see you then…"

She turns around to leave with a small freezing gust blowing off of her.

Zoro widens his eyes at the freezing mood breeze as he watches her go inside to get some well-earned rest. _*Is she that scared of people knowing about her secret? No, if she was, then she wouldn't have opened up to the look-alike...*_

He starts to wonder if her fear is something deeper than that, but tries not to think about that now. After all, he'll get all of his answers from the wind girl tonight.

He tiredly sighs in frustration of the weird position he's put in and sits down, with his back to the mast, to let himself pass through the day with a nap.

* * *

In Navarone's fortress just moments after the crew's escape, Inspector Shepherd furiously barges into Vice Admiral Jonathan's office where him, and his wife Jessica. "I hope you're happy with yourself Vice Admiral! Your blunder's just cost you this base!"

Jonathan raises an eyebrow to him as if he doesn't know why he's upset. "And what kind of blunder was this?"

"You allowed the Straw Hats to get away!"

Jonathan chuckles at the accusation as he looks outside where the landslide took place. "We had a perfect shot at Straw Hat's balloon. It was your bazooka that stopped us from capturing them."

Shepherd's anger continues to rise as he points to Vice Admiral. "Don't blame this on me! You're the one in charge of this failed operation! No matter how I see it, this is all due to your incompetence! I don't care if you are Admiral Akainu's favorite! I'll see to it that this whole base is demolished and every soldier here is thrown out to the-!"

Jessica cuts off the man's temper tantrum by giving a good punch to the face so hard that it knocks him out!

She ignores her husband's impressed stare as she looks to him. "I know he's incompetent, but you did lose them…"

"Yes, but it was his interference that did it." Jonathan says as he looks down to the useless inspector.

Regardless, he's not mad at all as he smiles at his wife. "It was thanks to those pirates though, that we achieved our objective."

Jessica looks at him in confusion as he explains himself. "Everyone here worked together for a common goal."

The head chef pauses at the explanation and realizes that he's right. "Now that you mention it, I did notice."

He chuckles at her surprise. "That was my plan for this base. Those pirates helped to prove how useful this base truly is for the navy. I have no doubt the headquarters will be reminded of that once I report how we repelled a strong crew such as the Straw Hats. What do you think?"

Jessica couldn't be more proud of how he managed things, but she's not too happy because of the man she just punched. "What about him? There's no way he'd give us a good report even if I didn't punch him."

"Who cares, I was about to punch out the bastard myself!" He and his wife laugh at that before Jonathan's den den mushi starts ringing.

Jonathan looks at the snail in confusion before he answers it to see it growing the same kind of red hair that Noah has. "Sir, I need to report to you about the trap."

Jonathan grans at the snail and responds to him. "I was wondering what happened to you Noah. Were you able to pull off your trap against Wind Rider?"

The snail solemnly nods as he keeps on a serious frown. "We did, but she still managed to take us down. There weren't any casualties, but half of my unit experienced minor injuries. They're all being treated as we speak, but they won't stop talking about how they don't regret anything."

The Vice Admiral keeps a small grin on his face from hearing the pride in the Lieutenant's voice from talking about his subordinates. "I'm glad they weren't seriously hurt. Did you get injured?"

The Lieutenant furrows his eyebrows at the questions as he remembers his experience with Rose and what he learned about her. "I was knocked out a few times, but I also learned that she's even more dangerous than we thought."

Jonathan raises an eyebrow at how nervous his subordinate sounds. "What do you mean?"

"You see sir, after the pirate knocked me out the first time, Sarona Lily took the stone out of the case we had it in."

Jonathan becomes horrified at the report and worried for the cadet. "The stone didn't work on her, did it?!"

"No sir, but when she held the stone, Wind Rider started freaking out. She knew everything about the Spiriting Night and tried to scare Lily with those facts to put it down. That stubborn girl wouldn't let it go until Wind Rider revealed that she used that comet to get here herself!"

Jonathan's blood ran cold from what he just heard when Jessica walks up to him and talks to Noah. "Are you saying that this pirate's not from this world?"

"She said it herself! She even wears a necklace with the exact same stone as the one we took from her, but without the comet's energy! That has to be enough proof!"

Jonathan calms himself down before he scowls at the snail. "I'll add the confession to my report when I talk about the crew's visit. Thank you for reporting this, get yourself some rest."

"Yes sir." He hangs up his side of the line so Jonathan follows suit.

Jessica has rarely seen her husband so distraught, so she knows that this is something serious. "What now?"

Jonathan tiredly sighs at the situation as he takes a seat and looks at the Straw Hats' posters. "This can't be taken lightly. I'm going to report both the girl's research as well as the confession, but ask them to run a background check on her to see if they can find anything. For all we know, Wind Rider could've just said that to make sure her doppelganger didn't use it by mistake…"

That last sentence didn't help his doubts, but now he knows that he needs to do something about Lily as well. If they confirm that Rose truly isn't from this world, then Lily's life as a marine will only become increasingly difficult if she stays in her position as a cadet in Navarone…

He has an idea about what he has to do, but he's going to have to pull a few strings for this one. "Jessica, can you make your most energizing meal today? I'm going to have a long day ahead of me."

Jessica nods before she gives her husband a kiss on the cheek for good luck then leaves.

When Jonathan finds himself alone in the room, besides the knocked-out inspector, he grabs his den den mushi and makes a call.

As soon as it's answered, the snail's face is replaced by an older man's face with a long scar over his left eye. The snail tiredly yawns before he talks to him. "Is that you Jonathan? It's been a while! How have you been?"

Jonathan chuckles at the older Vice Admiral's easygoing attitude before he responds. "It really has been a while Garp. I'm doing well, but I need to talk to you. How far are you from the base?"

Garp happily smiles at the invitation as he answers without hesitation. "Not far at all, I can bring the ship by in two days time."

"Perfect, I'll see you then." The two Vice Admirals hang up each other as if it was a regular conversation between two friends instead of two high ranking officers.

Jonathan grins in relief of how easy it was to help his subordinate. "Whatever happens now, it's up to fate."

He gets up to head to the dining hall and hopes for the best for his subordinate, and for the crew that helped bring his base back to life.

* * *

The sun has long since set when Usopp and Chopper finished fixing the hull of the ship. Now that the Merry is safe to sail on water again, she's ready to get out of the sky.

Sanji is inside doing the dishes while Zoro is inside to get some peaceful shut-eye since Luffy, Rose, Usopp, and Chopper eagerly volunteered to deflate the balloon. The four of them unanimously chose the funnest method possible which is to fly up to the top of the octopus balloon and jump around on its head to deflate it.

While the tactic's working to cause the ship's slow descent, Nami sweat drops at how the four of them are treating the octopus like a trampoline. "They'd better not deflate it too quickly..."

Robin giggles at the sight of her crewmates having fun before she looks down at the water, that's coming closer by the second. "I wouldn't worry, we're almost down."

The ship lands on the water with a small thud before the octopus balloon releases its hold on the rails, and completely deflates back to its original size.

The four jumpers laugh at the fun ride while Rose catches them with her wind, and sets the group down on the deck while the octopus lands in the ocean.

Nami happily smiles at the ship sailing in normal water again before she heads inside. "I'm going to head to bed. Rose, you still ok for night watch?"

Rose nods with an easygoing smile. "Yea, I can do it. I'll see you guys tomorrow."

The navigator nods with a grin before she goes inside with Robin.

Usopp, Luffy and Chopper followed not too long after and leaves Rose alone to enjoy the peaceful night. She relaxes by the railing to enjoy the view of the night sky when Sanji walks out of the kitchen.

The chef notices the astronomer outside and blinks at how she's all alone. "Do you need anything to help you stay awake for night watch Rose-chan?"

Rose shakes her head as she smiles at him. "Thanks, but I'm good. Have a good night."

"Good night, Rose-chan!" Sanji says with a happy smile as he goes to bed.

Once she's alone, she goes to the kitchen, grabs two bottles of booze and walks out to find Zoro about to head to the crow's nest.

When Zoro sees her, he becomes surprised to see her holding two bottles of alcohol. "What the fuck?"

"Trust me, we're both going to need a drink for this…" She uses her wind to get the two of them flying up to the crow's nest.

Once they're seated across from each other, Rose hands him one of the bottles. With the bottle she kept, she opened it up and took a swig, only to force herself to swallow and grimace at the gross flavor. "Ugh, this tastes worse than my devil fruit!"

Zoro chuckles at the new drinker's reaction to the booze before he opens his own bottle and takes a gulp. "It takes a while to get used to the taste."

"I'll say…" She puts the bottle down to see that he's wearing his usual scowl.

"Let's not stall anymore."

Rose slowly nods before she takes a deep breath, and looks him in the eye with a brave face. "Alright, now that you know the truth, what do you want to know?"

TO BE CONTINUED

* * *

 **A/N: Hi everyone, first I want to wish you all a Happy Valentine's Day. I hope you're all having a fun day.**

 **Second, thank you all for supporting my story this far. Today marks two years since I re-started the story and I'm really proud of how it's going so far.**

 **I hope you all will continue this journey with me in the chapters to come. :D**


	39. Chapter 39

The green haired swordsman stares down the mysterious girl in front of him, and thinking of what to ask first. Once, he has a few ready, he works on getting some answers. "How long have you been in this world?"

Rose grins at the harmless question before she looks to the stars. "Since the day I met you guys at Little Garden."

Zoro is dumbfounded by the quick answer, because of how calm she was not only on the island but also when meeting the band of pirates. "So, you planned on coming here?"

She sighs at the question before she faces him, and lightly scratches the back of her head. "No, I came here by accident. The night that I left my world, I saw the comet for the first time. I didn't know how to leave that place back then, so I made a joke that a wish would do it."

She chuckles at the joke that she made before she lifts up her necklace to show off her crystal under the lantern's light. "Turns out the joke was on me, because this beautiful gem absorbed enough of the comet's energy to grant it while I was asleep. The next thing I knew, I woke up on the deck."

He immediately becomes shellshocked at the answer, and stares at the heavy sleeper with wide eyes. "You woke up on our ship?!"

Rose holds herself back from giggling at his surprised facial expression, and looks to the Merry's head. "Yea, you guys already left when I showed up. I figured out that you guys were pirates, so I left to avoid getting in trouble for sneaking onboard."

He nods at this, and is grateful that she gave him some booze. He takes a drink to help him process the story then looks at her. "You still didn't seem freaked out when you met us."

"That's because when my folks were alive, we made guidelines on how to blend into other worlds." She digs into her bag until she takes out a lamp dial, and her journal.

She flips through the pages until she reaches the guidelines and turns on the lamp dial to shine a better light on the book. "I'm still updating it as I travel, but there are some very useful ones in here."

Rose keeps shining a light over the book while Zoro takes the book and reads a guideline out loud. "Guideline # 1: Don't tell anyone your origins until you learn how the Timore comet's viewed in that world. Depending on how it's viewed, you can either tell those that you trust or don't tell them at all..."

He widens his eyes at the hefty guideline and looks to her in disbelief. "You can't be serious about this..."

She shrugs as she takes the journal back. "If I told you guys the truth when we first met, would you honestly believe me and not be suspicious?"

He stares her down for a moment, but he knows that she has a valid point. "Fair enough, but that doesn't explain how you knew about Alabasta when we first met. You even knew what devil fruits were."

He pauses when another question pops up in his mind. "Wait, are your powers even from a devil fruit?!"

She giggles at the worried question and raises her hands up defensively. "Relax, the story of how I found my devil fruit was true. Besides this wind power, I'm the same as any other human girl you know."

The swordsman settles down by the answer, but that doesn't settle all his questions. "Ok, but do devil fruits exist in your world?"

She tenses up at the question, because she knows that they're going into the heavier details now. "No, they don't exist in my world. The reason I know about them is why I'm so hesitant in everyone knowing..."

Zoro raises an eyebrow at the tenseness before Rose takes a small breath.

Once she's ready, she gets it over with as quickly as she can. "You see, the books that we read are basically windows to different worlds. That means what we're reading is actually happening in another world. Where I'm from that's especially true because we have access to thousands, if not millions, of stories that show a different world's past and future. This world is no exception to that."

Zoro drops his jaw at the explanation and can only stare at her with wide eyes.

Rose drinks her alcohol on his behalf and shudders at the strong flavor again. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and sighs when she sees that he's still frozen. "And this is why I'm so secretive about it with you guys. I don't want to freak you all out."

Zoro snaps out of it and completely understands her reasoning. It doesn't mean that he understands the rest of it though. "You're telling me that you know this world's past and future?"

She quickly nods, and tries her best not to talk about her knowledge of the crew. "That's right, I know this world's historical events like the pirate king's death and what it caused. I also know future events that affect the World Government, which is why outsiders like me are prime targets for them. And thanks to my screw up in Navarone, they probably know who I am now."

He remembers her confession to the marine and starts becoming angry at how she can be so stupid. "Then what the hell were you thinking?! There had to have been other ways to get her to drop it!"

She groans at the lecture as she mirrors his glare. "If there was, I sure as hell would love to know it! If I had used my wind on Lily, she could've triggered the comet's power by accident!"

He's still mad about the choice when he remembers the lookalike that Rose helped. "What exactly is going on between you two? Why do you guys look alike?"

The brunette calms down a little at the new topic, but is still hesitant to answer his question. "Lily... She's kind of like this world's version of me."

The swordsman raises an eyebrow at the weird answer. "What do you mean?"

She knits her eyebrows in worry of how to phrase it right, and tries to explain it clearly. "What I said about doppelgangers is true but there's more to it. It's like two worlds are mirrors to one another with someone with the same face living in both worlds. They could have the same name, personality, and everything. However, the opposite could also be true and the only thing they could have in common is their faces. It all depends on the environments that they grew up in."

She sees the blank look on his face and chuckles at the reaction. "Sorry, I guess that was too much. What I'm trying to say, is that Lily is the me that's supposed to be in this world."

Zoro twitches an eyebrow at the off-handed insult to herself before he whacks her on the head, but his fist only goes through her. "Don't say that!"

Rose tilts her head in confusion of the hit as he tries again, but gets the same result. "What pissed in your booze?"

He stops trying to hit her when he finds that it's useless and grabs his liquor. "Don't say crap like you're not supposed to be here! You're annoying, but you're a part of the crew too!"

The wind girl is taken aback by the insult, as she watches him drink, but can't help but smile at his way of saying that he's accepted her. "Thanks, you're annoying too."

After he pulls away from the drink, he chuckles at the returned insult. "Thanks, so when are you going to tell the others?"

She freezes at the question, that reminds her of her other problems, and nervously rubs the back of her neck. "I'm not sure..."

He knits his eyebrows at the doubtful answer. "What do you mean?"

"I need time. I don't want to scare the others with all this."

He frowns at her uncertainty, because this is bound to get out to the others sooner or later. "I get that this is weird, but if you explain it to them, they'll get over it."

She hastily shakes her head to the idea. "Not yet, I need to gain Robin's trust first."

When the name of their newest crew mate is mentioned, he becomes confused. "What does Robin have to do with this?"

She grows nervous about explaining her problem with Robin to him, but she knows there's no way around it. "The two of us don't trust each other. I have a feeling that if I tell her as things are, something bad will happen."

He widens his eyes at the explanation. "She hasn't done anything to you, has she?!"

Rose looks away from him as she remembers the questions, and eavesdropping, that she had to deal with from the archaeologist. "Just a few spying eyes, nothing I can't handle. Still, I can't shake the worry that it won't end well if she knows now. I need time to find out when she's ready."

Zoro understands her reasoning and tiredly sighs. "Alright, but don't take too long. From what you said, we're all going to get dragged into some deep shit from this."

Rose quietly groans at all the problems she could be causing them, as she tightens her hold on her drink. "I did try to keep you guys out of my problems. We can all thank Luffy's stubbornness for this."

"I'll drink to that." Zoro says as he clicks his bottle with hers and drinks up.

Rose smiles at his response and joins him in drinking some liquid courage. She starts getting used to the taste and smiles when she starts to feel tipsy. She giggles at the lightening feeling as she puts down the almost finished bottle, to keep herself from getting too drunk, and grins at the green haired companion. "You know, it feels great to finally let this out to someone! You got any more questions?!"

Zoro grins at how she's finally relaxing about the subject and finishes his drink. "I just have a few more questions. First, what are you going to do with the stone you got back?"

Rose keeps a small grin on her face as she takes the tin container, that's holding her sample, out of her bag. "For now, I'm going to keep it by my side. It'd be pretty bad if someone in the crew grabbed it."

"How did you get that other one to work?"

She shrugs at the question as she remembers how the stone almost worked on her instead of her letter. "That was a lot of dumb luck, but I have a theory. In both the time when I left my world, and during the experiment there were a few common things that happened. First was that I spoke of a desired destination. The second was that I touched the crystal that held it's radiation."

Zoro nods at the similarities and tries to follow along. "If speaking of a place actually worked though, why did you freak out when Lily held the stone?"

Rose triumphantly laughs then points to him as if she's about to solve a crime. "That my friend is because having a destination in mind gives the energy a place to go to, but it's not the trigger! Oh no, the trigger in this is these babies!"

She points to her hand and wiggles her fingers. "It needs body heat! Or some other heat source to warm up and leak out the energy that it holds!"

She opens the box to show that the stone is surrounded by two, blue, shells that are emitting as cold of an air as if they're on Drum Island. "These are freeze dials. They have the opposite effect of heat dials and give off a freezing chill."

She grins at the cold crystal to find that its glow hasn't changed since she last saw it. "I've kept the dials with the stone all day, and it hasn't caused any problems."

Zoro widens his eyes at the theory and remembers the freezing cold wind that Rose made when she was convincing Lily to give her the sample. "I think you're right. You were making cold wind when you were talking to the marine."

Rose pauses at this and happily grins at the higher chances that her theory's right. "Really?!"

She puts her box away, and grabs her journal. She hastily writes down the confirmation and starts mumbling about her work. "This is so great! There are so many opportunities with this discovery! If I learn to control my cold wind, I might even be able to use the comet's radiation without losing a crystal!"

Zoro sweat drops at the nerd's enthusiasm before he remembers the papers that he saw disappearing during her experiment. "Hey wait, what exactly did you do in your experiment?"

Rose snaps out of it from the swordsman's voice and sheepishly grins at him. "I sent a letter and photo back to my homeland."

He raises an eyebrow at the answer. "You serious? I thought you hated that place."

Rose loses her buzz from remembering all the bad times in New York and sighs. "I do, but I have some friends that made life there less miserable. I wasn't able to tell them I was leaving, so I sent them those things to let them know I'm ok."

"You think they got it?"

She shrugs at the question before she looks up at the night sky, as if it holds her answer. "No clue, but wherever it landed will give someone a good fright."

Zoro chuckles at the thought before he gets up. "Ain't that the truth. I think I got all that I can handle tonight. I'm going to bed."

Rose sees that he's starting to climb off and grins at him. "See ya, and thank you."

He stops moving after he climbs off the edge and looks at her in confusion. "What are you thanking me for?"

"For being the first to find out, and for hearing me out before judging. I feel a lot better about it now."

The swordsman wasn't expecting such a sentimental answer, but he doesn't let it get to him as he lightly scoffs, and starts climbing down. "That's nothing to thank me for, it's not like you're any different. You're still the same shitty swordswoman I know."

Rose twitches an eyebrow at the insult before she glares down at him. "I'll show you who's shitty after I kick your ass tomorrow, you chia pet!"

"We'll see about that you alien!" Zoro says with a smirk as he climbs down without another word.

Rose chuckles at the new insult as she relaxes in the crow's nest, and is grateful of how things went. Even though she didn't tell him about how she knows the crew's future, she's happy that she could tell him the rest of her secret without him overreacting.

After she grabs her booze to finish the drink, she drops the bottle and looks down at her journal. With not only her crew mate, but the rest of the World Government, knowing her secret, she knows that her challenges are just beginning. "Man, this is nuts. Maybe I wrote that letter to them too soon."

She shrugs to herself as she updates her journal with everything that's happened involving the experiment. _*If I find more stones, then maybe I can try again. Whatever happens, I hope that one I sent at least got to them.*_

The astronomer keeps a small grin on her face as she goes through the night with her thoughts on her friends, and imagining the looks on their faces if they received the letter.

* * *

A few days have passed since Timothy and Naomi have hired Rose's foster sisters to work in their restaurant, and they're satisfied at the revenge they've dished out to them.

Marie and Laura have been forced to do every kind of clean up job available with Timothy being their supervisor. He's not one to let up either, if he sees that they're about to finish a task, he would load get the next chore ready for them. Both of the girls hate the job, but they know that they can't find anything else decent, that would fit with their high school schedule, so they try to trudge through until they graduate in a few weeks.

Today's lunch shift was no different, with the twins in charge of cleaning the front room while Timothy takes care of placing new pizzas in the display cases.

While the nineteen year old boy is in the kitchen to grab another pizza pie, Laura immediately stops and sits down at an empty chair to rest. "I don't know how much longer I can handle this Marie."

Marie couldn't agree more, and doesn't care how her complaints look to the customers that are eating at the tables. "I know, this is torture. I finally get why Rosie always looked like a street rat."

"I don't see either of you winning beauty pageants."

The girls freeze at the squeaky insult and turn in horror to see Timothy staring at them with narrow eyes. He puts the sausage pie in the display case before he points to the window. "If you two have time to chat, then you need more work. Go clean the windows."

The girls regretfully agree as they go into the kitchen to get the cleaning supplies that they need.

Once they're gone, Timothy tiredly sighs at the girls' whining. However, they always do as they're told, so he knows that they're at least trying.

He silently hopes that they'd get rid of the attitude sooner than later, as he stays behind the counter to see his favorite pair of cops walking in. However, when he sees frowns on both Andrew and Robert's faces, and Robert carrying a guitar case and duffel bag, he starts getting worried. "What happened?"

Both men look to each other for a moment, then back to the employee before Bobby speaks up. "Our boss is calling off the search for Rose..."

Timothy widens his eyes at the news, but he understands since he knows that they can't find her. He's still disappointed that they gave up so quickly. "I see. Did he say anything?"

Andrew softly frowns at the teenager's saddened expression. "Just that the trail is too cold. We found her stuff on the roof of her foster home, but there's nothing else to go on."

Robert puts the duffel bag on the counter and takes the guitar cases off his back. "Since you're the closest to her, we're giving her valuables to you."

Timothy widens his eyes at this, and opens the duffel bag to see that it holds a rolled up sleeping bag, a first aid kit, a notebook, telescope, her camera, and the memory chips that got Rick arrested. "Seriously?!"

Andrew nods, before he gives him a small grin. "Yea, and look in the camera's memory. You're gonna want to see her pictures."

The nerd complies, and looks at the device in shock when he sees pictures of the Timore comet. "Oh my god! Do you know what this means?! She really did leave this world!"

He happily smiles at the picture when Marie and Laura come out with spray cleaner and rags in their hands.

Robert is taken aback by the girls' appearance, because he hasn't seen them since he arrested their dad. "You two work here now?"

The girls look at him in shock before they scowl at the cops. They blame them for their misfortune, almost as much they blame Rose for leaving them, and want nothing to do with them.

Laura keeps having a look of disdain on her face as she answers him. "Yea, we work here now."

"What are you two doing here?" Marie asks with hopes for them to leave as soon as possible.

"We're friends with Timothy." Andrew says while he starts feeling sorry for the girls.

Neither twin wants his pitiful look as they go to work but Timothy blocks them off.

"Hold on, you two should see this!" He shows them the comet photos in the camera. "These came from Rose's camera."

Laura widens her eyes at the news and looks through them. "You're serious?! You mean all that world travelling shit was real?!"

Marie rolls her blue eyes at the questions. "Don't be stupid Laura, of course it wasn't. She obviously photo shopped them before she ran off."

She looks to the cops who are supposed to be looking for the missing girl. "Have either of you found her yet?"

"No, we came here to tell Timothy that we're calling off the search." Robert says as he reflects their scowls.

Marie grins at the news. "Oh really? Wonderful!"

All the boys furrow their eyebrows at the blunt joy that she has for Rose's disappearance.

"You really don't care at all?" Robert asks in disappointment in the girl's immaturity.

Marie scoffs at the question and could care less about the hated stares she's getting. "The only reason I'd want her back is to get back at her for causing all this trouble. I'm surprised you all haven't figured out her scheme."

"And what scheme is that?" Timothy asks as he holds himself back from spraying her with soda.

She smirks at the men as she explains her theory. "She left all that evidence behind to make it look like she disappeared, and just ran away. I bet you the brat is in some homeless shelter in Jersey, and laughing at all you fools right..."

She trails off when the group feels a sudden chill in the air.

"What the, is the thermostat broken?" Laura asks, but one look at the thermostat can tell that it's at 67 degrees, and she can't blame it on the door opening, because only the early summer heat would fly in.

Before anyone can try another theory, a blue glow begins to float in mid-air, just above the counter and duffel bag.

The twins shriek in fear and huddle together while the boys step back from the light, that's half the size of the duffel bag.

The ten customers, who are having lunch, stop eating when they notice the flying light and share the same look of shock. They all shout out different kinds of shocked cries as they grab their cell phones and start recording the phenomenon.

Naomi runs out of the kitchen from all the noise and freezes when she sees the light. She scans the room for her son, and finds him staring at it with bug eyes and his back to the oven. "What the hell's going on?!"

"I have no idea! This light came out of nowhere!" Timothy says as he adjusts his big glasses to see shapes materializing out of it right on top of the bag. "There's something in there!"

"Nobody touch it!" Robert calls out to the civilians as he and his partner keep their hands above the guns, that are on their belts, in case it's something dangerous.

When the light begins to fade though, everyone begins to calm down to see that it's only two pieces of paper with a stone resting on top of it. The blue glow still emanates on the items for a few seconds before it fades off to the point where only the crystal holds a blue glow.

Everyone that knew Rose are still shell shocked by the appearance while the customers start approaching the counter to get a closer look at the objects.

"Whoa, this stone still has some light in it." A young man says as he goes to touch it, but Naomi snatches it from him.

The customers flinch at the owner's aggressiveness, but Naomi could care less as she points to the door. "WE'RE CLOSED! EVERYONE, BUT THE COPS AND EMPLOYEES, GET THE HELL OUT!"

Half of them rush out to avoid her wrath, but the other half refuses to go.

"You can't do that!"

"Yea, we want to know what happened!"

"Your employees were talking about Rose Catone's disappearance! How do you guys know her?!"

"We won't leave until-!"

The teenagers stop their protests when Robert punches the counter and glares at them. "You heard her! Get out before we arrest you for trespassing!"

Now that threat did the trick, for they rushed off as if the place was on fire.

"Just you wait! We'll out after we sell the video to the reporters!" One of them calls out just before the door closes.

Laura pulls away from her sister's embrace and rushes to the lock the door, before she turns the open sign around to show that the restaurant is closed. "That should work."

Naomi tiredly sighs as she opens her fist to reveal the cold, glowing stone that's half as bright as it was before. She gets a closer look at the roughly cut rock, that looks like it came straight from a mine, and immediately recognizes the red and black colors that show under the blue light. "Isn't this the same kind of stone from Rose's necklace?"

Timothy takes the, rough stone from her and shivers before he puts it on the counter. Once he gets a closer look at the gem, he brightens up with a huge smile. "Oh my god, you're right! This must've been how she did it!"

Both twins look at the stone in horror, as they remember all the times they made fun of their foster sister for believing in other worlds.

Now that Laura knows that this is all real, a feeling of remorse wells up inside of her for how she treated her. A part of her believed that she was just trying to help Rose accept the reality of her life by following her sister and dad in tearing down her dreams. Now that she knows that this is all real, she has no idea why they were so mean to her in the first place...

Marie however, still feels the same hatred for Rose as before if not stronger for making fools out of them. She already lost all her friends when word got out about the arrest at school, and now that there's proof that all of this is real, she'll only be seen as the evil sister in Rose's story. No matter how she sees it, there's no way that she can recover her old life, and it's all thanks to her ungrateful foster sister.

The older twin turns away from all this nonsense and storms to the bathroom. "I'm going to clean the bathroom! Come on Laura!"

Laura hesitates in the order, which makes Marie stop and look at her in confusion. "Laura?"

The younger sister of a minute looks from the delivery to her sister before she shakes her head. "I want to see what happened to Rose."

Marie is taken aback by the defiance, for this is the first time her sister hasn't followed along. That feeling of shock immediately changes to betrayal as she turns her back on her. "Have it your way..."

She storms off without a word while the rest of the group looks at the argument in shock. Laura turns around to see their faces and gives them a shy smile. "If it's ok, I'd like to stay to know..."

Timothy is the first to recover and gives her a genuine smile. "Absolutely!"

He grabs one of the papers to see that it's a letter and reads it out loud for everyone.

 **Hi Timothy and Naomi,**

 **In case you don't know, it's me, Rose Catone! I'm writing to you from the other side! Not from the grave, but from another world! I'm sorry that I wasn't able to tell you I was leaving. I'm more shocked than any of you about this. When the comet showed up that night, my necklace absorbed the comet's radiation. I didn't even notice what it was doing when I made a wish to go to the One Piece world, and it took me there in my sleep. I have to tell you, this world is as crazy and wonderful as shown in the story! Everything that's said to be impossible in our world is completely real here.**

 **With that though, lies the danger. It turns out, the comet is considered a taboo by the World Government. I promise I'm ok though, I found a devil fruit and I'm learning how to use it while I'm travelling with the Straw Hats. We met in Little Garden and I asked for a ride to Alabasta, but that wasn't enough for Luffy. He liked my research, and my devil fruit so much that he stubbornly considered me his crew mate. I tried everything to scare him off, even told him about my research and the story of my disappearance from here. He barely hesitated though, and wouldn't give up on me. One thing lead to another, and I wound up being their astronomer. I haven't told everyone about the research yet, but after the right arc is done, I hope that they'll understand...**

 **Listen, I don't know if I can write another letter. This is my first experiment, so I don't know if this even reached you, but I had to try to tell you some things. I want to thank both of you for everything you've done for me these last two years. Timothy, you're the first one to learn of my family's research and to actually believe in me. And Naomi, you may have had doubts, but you didn't treat me any differently than before you knew about it. Thanks to you guys, I'm positive that there's some good in every world I travel to.**

 **That being said, I don't intend to go back to New York any time soon. That place holds too many bad memories for me, so I hope you guys can forgive me for being selfish...**

 **Especially since I have a favor to ask. Naomi, I don't know if you remember but I gave you video cards on the day I gave you my application. If you still have them, can you find Bobby and give them to him please? I can't stop you and Timothy from looking at them, but I can't promise they'll be pretty. Out of all the policemen to handle them, I want Bobby to be the one because he's the only person I trust next to you guys. I also have a message for him on the back of this page.**

 **I'm sorry, I took up a good amount of the page with the request. I'm just happy that I finally have a chance to try contacting you. You guys and Bobby are some of the only things I miss in that world, so I hope you're happy, and are doing well for yourselves.**

 **Take care,**

 **Rose**

Once Timothy finished the page, with tears pooling in his eyes, he gives it to his mom to avoid the salty drops from falling on the paper. He brings his fingers under his glasses to get rid of the tears, but he can't hide the smile that's evident from reading that his friend is safe and happy. "I can't believe she's in the One Piece world! And she's a Straw Hat!"

Laura looks from him to the letter in amazement. "I've seen Rose reading One Piece a lot. If she's with the crew, would she show up in the story?"

Timothy silently gasps at the idea, before he's practically bouncing with excitement. "There's only one way to find out! Come on!"

He takes his former enemy by the wrist, and practically drags her into the back office where he keeps a small stash of manga.

Naomi chuckles at her son's enthusiasm as she looks through Rose's kind words. "I can't believe she used her first experiment to write to us..."

As Naomi reads the letter with a small grin, Bobby and Andrew look at the second paper that arrived to find that it's a photo of the missing girl.

Andrew chuckles at the girl who's sitting on a palm tree without a care in the world. "She seems really happy there."

As Robert looks at the girl he failed to help, he can't help but softly smile at the positive outcome for the brunette. Especially when it's the first time he's seen her wearing a tank top, and doesn't see a single bruise on her exposed skin. "Yea, I guess she is."

Naomi looks at the other side of the page to see that there's a whole other letter written on it. "Wow, when she wrote that she has a message for you too she wasn't kidding. I already gave you her videos, so here's the other half of the favor."

Robert becomes nervous at being given a message from Rose, in fear that it's full of jokes about meeting the real Smoker. Nonetheless, he takes the page and looks through the letter to get it over with.

 **Hey Bobby,**

 **I'm sorry but our game's over. If I had known that the last time I saw you was the last time, I would've given you a proper farewell. I hope you can settle for this note.**

 **I want you to know that I've always loved our chases. Not just because it's fun to mess with you, but because that was the closest I had to playing tag with a friend back then. Heh, you know, it's pretty rare for a kid to say that their first friend is a cop. I wouldn't change it though, you're a good person and I hope you can look at those videos. I was going to give them to you when I turn eighteen, but now that I'm gone, there's no point in waiting.**

 **On a more positive note, I met with the real Smoker during my adventures! I told him all about you and he was surprised to learn that there's a blond version of him out there. No matter what either of you say, I know that Smoker is that world's version of you. He even gave me your scowl when I called him Bobby the second! I know he can't replace you, but it's good to know a part of you still exists in my life.**

 **Thank you for not giving up on me these past five years. It's because of you that I was able to meet Timothy and Naomi, so I'm grateful. I'm sorry that I wasn't able to tell you that in the past. At least now that I'm gone, your job will be easier.**

 **I hope you live a good life,**

 **Rose**

Once Robert is done with his message, he puts it down and keeps his head down. "I'm going to get a smoke."

Andrew and Naomi are surprised by the announcement as they watch him turn away from them, and walk out of the restaurant.

As soon as the blond cop is outside, he moves away from the windows so that he can't be seen and takes a cigar and lighter from his pocket. He struggles with the lighter in his hand as he thinks on what Rose wrote to him. He didn't want to admit it, but her chases helped him to get faster than ever. He barely loses his criminals now thanks to all the times he learned the twists and turns of the city from trying to catch her. And now that she's gone, he doesn't have that challenge to help him anymore.

He finally gets the lighter to work, and starts smoking it while he thinks about the last thing she wrote in his letter. "You idiot, you made my job more boring by leaving..."

He barely cares about the tears that are forming in his eyes as he smokes his cigar and remembers how fun the chases were.

Meanwhile, Andrew is scanning over his partner's letter and chuckling at Rose's mention of Smoker. "Wow, Timothy and I were right on the mark about her meeting Smoker."

Naomi lightly shakes her head as she stares at the photo. "Just like her."

She lifts her head from the picture and smiles at Andrew. "Did you ever meet Rose when she was here?"

Andrew nods to her as he puts the letter down. "Just a few times on patrol with Bobby. I tried to tell him to let it go since she was just a kid, but he refused and chased her without me. Every time he lost her, I had to get away from him so I could laugh."

He chuckles at the memory before he looks at the gem that came with the letter. "What are we going to do about this rock?"

Naomi snaps out of her happiness from the question and realizes that the answer is tricky. "Thanks to those videos, it'll be clear that Rose did go to another world. I don't want the public to know about the stone, because of how dangerous it could be in the wrong hands. I'm going to hide it right now."

She takes the crystal and goes to the kitchen with it. She puts it in a small, empty, metal cylinder and sealed the lid. The she goes into the freezer and goes into the furthest part of the freezer and places it on the corner top shelf where nothing gets placed for how forgetful the spot is.

Once she's done, she runs out of the freezer and shuts the door behind her. She rubs her arms to warm herself up while Timothy and Laura come out of the office with a One Piece manga in each of their hands. "Did you two find her in there?"

Laura shakes her head as she skims through volume 23 of One Piece. "All I can find are people riding ducks and a rubber guy fighting a sandman."

Timothy finishes skimming through volume 27 and sighs in disappointment when he can't find her. "I can't find her in here either. I don't get it."

Naomi hums in thought as she puts her arms down. "Maybe because the story is the writer's version of it."

Laura knits her eyebrows in confusion, because she has no idea what that means.

Timothy however, starts to think about it. "So, she could be in an alternate timeline that the manga won't show."

Naomi nods at the thought as she shows them Rose's photo. "Exactly, she did give us a photo though. Maybe you can recognize the place Timothy."

The boy takes the picture, and gets a closer look of the pirate that's sitting on a tree. He looks at the green pumpkin like fruits that are on her tree, and immediately recognizes the place. "This was taken at Skypiea! Those fruits only grow at this place!"

Laura looks at the photo of her foster sister, and can only smile when she sees her so happy. "Is this pirate world that amazing?"

Timothy happily nods to her. "It's the best! If you want to look into it, I can lend you the first volume."

The blonde looks from the book to her supervisor for a moment as she thinks about the offer. She knows that she can't change how she treated Rose in the past, but she can still get to know her. With that in mind, she gives him a small grin as she nods. "Yea, I'd like that."

"Awesome, come on!" He leads her back to the office to get her started on the first volume of One Piece.

The restaurant owner can only smile at the exchange, because she can tell that at least one of the twins is starting to change their attitudes. _*Even when Rose isn't around, she causes chaos.*_

She chuckles to herself before she heads back to the front room to talk to the officer. Now that her customers' videos have a chance of being public, she'll need their help to prepare for the unwanted attention that comes with them.

* * *

As the sun begins to rise for a new day on the Going Merry, Rose has just finished updated her journal with everything that's happened with her experiment. She happily grins at the results as she closes the book, and looks down at the deck to see that the some of the crew members are coming out.

Rose packs up her things, along with the empty liquor bottle, and vaults over the crow's nest. Once she cushions her fall with her wind, she heads inside to change her clothes for the day. When she reaches the girls' room, she's met with Robin reading one of the books that she took in Alabasta. "Since when were you into astronomy?"

Robin notices her arrival and closes the book. "I've grown curious since the base. For some reason, when we first arrived, they thought that we disappeared through Hell's comet."

Rose is dumbfounded by the explanation before she starts laughing. "Hahaha, you're serious?!"

The archaeologist is slightly confused at the sudden laughter. "Why's that funny?"

She settles down to light giggles before she grins at her. "Because they based it on my astronomy books, so they can have the soldiers believe it was a ghost ship at the time. They mentioned cursed gold too, right?"

Robin nods but looks down at the index book. "Still, why would they mention it if it's not in this book? And why is it so different?"

Rose quietly sighs to the questions, because she's too tired to deal with this, and honestly tired of dealing with Robin's suspicions. If she keeps just dodging Robin's questions, she can't get anywhere with her. She knows that Robin isn't ready to know yet, because telling her would make it easy for her to figure out that she knows her past as well.

Without a lot of thinking, she gives her a small frown as she looks the archaeologist in the eyes. "I'll make you a deal. When you can honestly tell me why the World Government is after you, I'll answer your questions. Until then, I'm done with your interviews."

Robin is taken aback by the blunt refusal to answer her as she watches her go into the closet to grab a long-sleeved green shirt, black jeans, and a navy-blue jacket. Rose moves deeper inside, and moves the clothes around to search for her gloves as she keeps talking. "I'm fine with us getting to know each other as friends, but if you have secrets then you shouldn't pry on others."

The wind girl finds her dark grey gloves on the shelf of the back of the closet and looks at the top shelf where her blue backpack, containing the books she stole from Navarone, reside. She steps back to move the clothes in place so that it's covered, closes the door, then looks back to her crew mate and the book that's in her hand. "Also, I don't mind you reading my astronomy books, but please put them back when you're done. I'll see you later."

She walks off and heads to the bathroom to change. Once she's alone in the room, she groans to herself as she buries her face in her hands. She didn't mean to make it so blunt, and now she feels like there's an even bigger rift between them.

Still, she can't help but be glad of the speechless results that she got from the archaeologist. With Robin thinking about her own secrets, she won't bother with her secret until she can be comfortable with the others knowing hers.

At least that's what the wind girl hopes for. Until she knows, all she can do now is hope that she bought enough time for them to at least make it through the Davy Back Fight. She nods to herself as she rushes to change her clothes and head off to join the other.

Meanwhile, Robin is still seated alone in the girls' room and contemplating what just happened.

This is the first time Rose has called her out on her own secrets, which has surprised her. The fugitive doesn't know why the wind girl hasn't spoken about it until now, but she can tell that she's serious about not answering her questions. She doesn't know if the astronomer knows what her secrets are, but she knows that she can't ask her anything without saying something about herself.

Robin can tell that this Hell's comet has something to do with Rose's secret, so for the time being she can only wait. Either wait for the World Government to bring her secret into the spotlight or for her own secrets to come out.

Robin quietly sighs at how things turned out as she puts the book away, and goes off to join the others to play in the waiting game that Rose has started.

Neither of them knows what to expect, and can only wait for time to tell of the chaos that their secrets will bring to the crew.

TO BE CONTINUED

* * *

 **A/N: Hi guys, sorry for the wait, but a lot has been happening irl. First, my sister is finally engaged! Second, I just got promoted at work today! Life is going to be rather hectic in the upcoming year, but I'll do my best to keep up with the story, and give you some fluffy moments in the next chapter! I hope you enjoy the development!**


	40. Chapter 40

In the days that passed since the crew's escape from Navarone, life on the Going Merry has been a peaceful one.

Today is no exception with everyone is doing their daily routine either on the deck or indoors. All but Rose, who's in the crow's nest, and studying on her devil fruit all day. When she looked inside the backpack that she took from Navarone, it not only held the three books that Lily gave her for her research, but also the devil fruit index that she first read to blend in.

She was only skimming the pages when she was in disguise, but now that she has time to pay attention to it, she's studying all she can about the secrets of her devil fruit.

The wind girl happily grins at the cheat sheet, when she feels ready to practice some of the moves that are recorded. She puts her book into her backpack, and holds her hand up to her eye level. She keeps her palm directed to the sky and begins to concentrate.

She narrows her eyes to her hand before wind starts to gather on her hand. She chuckles at the result, when the wind swirls around on her palm to appear as an orb of air. The brunette keeps a look of satisfaction on her face as she makes it spin in her hands faster, and reminds her of Naruto's rasengan.

She looks up at the afternoon sky to see that there aren't any clouds for her to throw it, then looks down for a target. She scans that deck for something to throw it at, and finds a barrel by the door.

She grins at the target as she aims her wind at it then throws it. As soon as she releases the ball, she chuckles in victory of it going straight to the target.

However, that victory is short lived, because when it's halfway to the barrel, it curves to the right and heads to the railing where Usopp, Chopper, and Luffy are fishing! "OH FUCK, GUYS BEHIND YOU!"

The three of them turn their heads, but it was too late because the attack hits Luffy's back and sends him flying in a spin.

Usopp and Chopper drop their jaws at how their captain flew ten feet off the ship in an instant, before Rose catches him on a gust of wind.

Rose sighs in relief as she brings Luffy back to the ship and flies down beside them. "Sorry about that. I was practicing a new move and it went haywire."

Luffy grins at the wind girl as he feels his feet placed back on the deck. "Don't worry about it, that move was great."

Rose returns the smile before she looks at the other fishermen. "You guys catch anything?"

Chopper frowns in disappointment as she reels his line back in to show nothing. "No..."

Usopp sighs in disappointment as he reels his line in to show the same result. "Yea, they're not biting. You guys want to do something else?"

Luffy nods as he grins at them. "Yea, let's play truth or dare! Rose, you're playing too!"

The wind girl chuckles at the order and nods. "Sure."

The captain runs off to see who else would be willing to pay while Rose, Chopper and Usopp take a seat in the middle of the deck.

In a matter of minutes, Luffy returns to the group but the only other crew mate that he could convince to play with them was Nami.

The navigator sits cross legged next to Rose, while Luffy takes a seat to make it so the group's in a circle.

Rose looks to the red head with mild confusion. "How'd he get you to play?"

Nami gives her a small smirk as she puts a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "I wouldn't miss a chance to play this game with you guys."

Rose gets suspicious of what she's planning when Luffy speaks up. "So, how do we play?"

All the players are taken aback by the question and turn to see him staring at them innocently.

"Why did you suggest a game that you don't know how to play?!" Chopper asks.

Luffy however, doesn't see it as a problem as he shrugs off their looks. "I heard it was fun, so I wanted to try."

"Of course you did..." Nami and Usopp mutter in disbelief of their captain.

Rose however, grins at the childish pirate and answers his question. "This is a game where one person asks the other to choose truth or dare. If they choose true, then they have to answer a question honestly. If they choose dare, then they have to do a task whether it's to do something crazy or not is up to the person who asked. You got it?"

Luffy nods with a carefree smile. "Yup, how to we decide on who's first?"

Rose goes into her backpack, and takes out the empty liquor bottle that she had stored in there since her interview with Zoro. "We can use this."

Usopp sweat drops at the random item in her bag. "Why do you have that?"

The wind girl shrugs at the question before she puts it at the center of their circle. "I forgot to throw it out. We can spin it to decide who asks first and then they spin it to see who they ask truth or dare to. Sound fair?"

The others nod in agreement as Luffy grabs the bottle. "Alright, let's go!"

He spins the bottle too fast so it takes a while for it to stop. Once it does, it points to the ship's doctor for him to be the first.

"Sweet, I'm first!" Chopper says with a happy grin as he spins the bottle.

Luckily, the spin wasn't as long as Luffy so it didn't take long for it to stop and point to the rubber man. "Alright Luffy, Truth or Dare?"

Luffy gives the doctor a toothy grin as he's almost bouncing in excitement. "I choose dare!"

Chopper knits his eyebrows in thought, because he doesn't know what could be a good dare for someone so reckless.

Nami sees that he's having trouble, so she taps his shoulder. "If you need help, I have a suggestion..."

Rose's worries become stronger when she realizes what she's planning. "You can't lead his dare!"

"Who said? You don't mind if I give you a suggestion do you Chopper?" Nami asks with a sweet smile that can't hide the devilish aura that's coming out of her.

Chopper hesitantly nods before she takes him out of the circle to talk in private.

Luffy tilts his head at all the secrecy before he looks to Rose. "What's Nami planning?"

"Some kind of stupid crap..." Rose says with a tired frown.

Usopp snickers at her reaction as he smirks at Luffy. "Probably something to get you to-!"

Rose cuts him off with a punch to the arm that's hard enough to knock him over.

Luffy laughs at the attack while he gets back up. Usopp rubs his sore arm and mutters curses when Nami and Chopper return to the group.

Rose narrows her purple eyes at Nami suspiciously, but the navigator just gives her an innocent grin as she sits down.

Chopper sits down and looks at Luffy nervously. "I dare you to kiss someone in the group..."

Rose tenses up at the dare while Usopp and Nami smother their laughter from her reaction.

Chopper is timidly worrying about Luffy picking him since he's staring at him innocently.

"I need to kiss someone?" Luffy asks with his head tilted cutely.

Chopper nods but points to the others. "Yea, someone in this circle, you get to choose."

"Oh, ok." He gets up and shocks Rose when he starts walking towards her.

She looks to Nami and Usopp, who are both giving her sly smirks, and is giving them a million curses in her mind. Still, she can't fight the blush when Luffy crouches in front of her with a toothy grin and holds her shoulders. "Let's kiss."

Rose's blush doubles from the innocent look on his face, and timidly nods. She knows that he's only kissing her for a dare, so she knows not to be nervous. Her heart doesn't know it though, because it's beating a mile a minute when he leans forward with his eyes closed.

She closes her eyes to get through the dare, but they open back up when she hears a thud behind her and no rubber man in front of her!

Everyone looks in shock to find Luffy kissing the railing instead of Rose, because he fell through the wind girl's airy body and landed face first on the rail behind her.

Rose couldn't help but chuckle at what happened when Luffy pulls away and rubs his face. "Sorry, I didn't mean for that to happen. You alright?"

Luffy nods as he puts his hand down and sits next to her. "I'm good."

She turns away from him and looks to Chopper. "Does that count?"

Chopper nods and looks to Luffy. "That can count since you-!"

He cuts himself off when Luffy leans to Rose's side and sneaks a kiss on her freckled cheek.

Usopp, Nami, and Chopper are surprised by the sneak attack, but nowhere near as surprised as the blushing brunette.

Luffy pulls away to see Rose's face competing with the redness of a cherry, and feels a warm mood breeze flying off her. "Was that too much on your allergies?"

Rose slowly shakes her head as she covers her face with her hand to hide the blush, and settles down her mood breeze. "I'll be fine. Keep playing..."

He nods with a toothy grin and he reaches for the bottle and gives it a spin. Once it stops, it shows the next target to be the crew's sniper! "Alright Usopp, truth or dare!"

The sniper snickers at the question. "The mighty Usopp never backs down from a dare!"

The captain smirks at the challenge and points to the kitchen door. "Then I dare you to get me some food from the kitchen!"

Usopp immediately regrets his choice, and begins to pale at the deadly task of stealing from Sanji's domain. "Seriously?!"

Chopper tilts his head at Usopp's hesitance with an innocent look in his eyes. "What's wrong? Are you backing down?"

Usopp tries to regain some of his composure as he gets up with shaky legs. "O-of course not! Consider this dare completed!"

The reindeer stares at him with stars in his eyes as he watches Usopp stalk towards the kitchen.

"Good luck Usopp!" Luffy calls out, and earns a glare from the sniper.

"Shut up, you jerk!"

Nami snickers at the situation while Rose tries her best to keep herself from laughing.

Usopp stares at the door to his challenge, and tries to think of a strategy to get him enough time to complete his goal. Once an idea pops up in his mind, he starts to smirk and slightly opens the door. "WHOA, ARE THOSE BEAUTIFUL MERMAIDS IN THE WATER?!"

"MERMAIDS?!" Luffy and Chopper yell out in shock as they get up and run to the railing to search for them.

Sanji slams open the door with hearts in his eyes and joins the gullible pirates at the railing. "Where are the mermaids?!"

"They're on the horizon, you can't miss them!" Usopp answers before he runs into the kitchen to finish his task.

Nami couldn't take it anymore and starts laughing at how his plan worked.

The boys stop searching when they hear her laughter and look back to see her still laughing.

Rose lets out a few giggles before she points to the kitchen door, for the boys to see Usopp walking out with some cookies in his hand.

He freezes when he sees everyone's eyes on him, and becomes terrified when he sees Sanji practically burning him with the fury in his eyes.

"YOU LIED ABOUT MERMAIDS TO STEAL FOOD?!"

Usopp runs as fast as can be with the angry chef close on his tail.

"CHOPPER CATCH!" Usopp throws the doctor five cookies and keeps running for his life.

Rose decides to be merciful and uses her wind to pick Sanji up.

The chef stops running when he sees that's he's not moving anymore. He finds himself a foot in the air, and flails his limbs to fruitlessly struggle to get down while it's dragging him backwards. "Please put me down Rose-chan, this idiot needs to pay!"

"Can't do that Sanji." The wind girl says as she drags him towards Nami.

Usopp timidly hides behind the mast while Chopper gives Luffy half of the cookies for them to enjoy.

Nami tiredly sighs at the ordeal, when Rose brings Sanji right in front of her, so she gives the chef a sweet smile. "Sorry Sanji-kun, we're playing truth or dare. We'll keep the game out of the kitchen, so please don't be mad at us."

Sanji's rage immediately melts away from Nami's beautiful smile, and stops struggling. His scowl is replaced with a loving grin while Rose sets him down. "I could never be mad at you Nami-san. If any of yours or Rose-chan's dares require the kitchen, you're more than welcome to come in."

He turns around and glares at the boys. "As for you guys, no more daring to steal food, got it?!"

The three of them quickly nod before Sanji heads back into the kitchen.

Usopp sighs in relief as he comes out of hiding. "Thanks for the save."

Rose and Nami nod in acknowledgement as they all return to the circle to resume the game.

Usopp spins the bottle for his turn and waits in anticipation. Once the green glass stops moving, it reveals the game's next victim to be Rose. "Alright Rose, truth or dare."

Rose gives him a mischievous smirk and gives him a thumbs up "Give me your worst fucking dare, but no suggestions from Nami."

The sniper snickers at the challenge. "I don't need her help on this one. I already know what I want." He points to her with a look of pride. "I dare you to wear a dress for the rest of the day!"

Nami happily grins at the dare, while the other boys are surprised by the random challenge.

The tom-boyish pirate however, is unimpressed by the stupid dare and looks at him blankly. "Seriously? You couldn't choose something more interesting?"

"It's my pick, so you gotta do it!" Usopp says with a prideful smirk.

Rose tiredly sighs before she shrugs. "Sorry, but I can't put on something that I don't have."

The wind girl tenses up when she feels a hand on her shoulder, and doesn't need to turn her head to know that the navigator is smirking right behind her.

"Oh don't worry, I'll lend you a dress, and even do it for free as long as I pick it out and style you up..." Nami doesn't give the poor girl a chance to respond before she drags her inside by the back of the collar of Rose's jacket.

Rose is stunned by the crazy turn of events, but before she was taken to the door she glares at Usopp and flips him off. "The next time Sanji chases you, I'm letting him kick your sorry ass!"

Usopp barely cares about the promise as he waves her off and laughs in victory. "It was worth it!"

Chopper and Luffy both stare at the sniper in confusion, because they don't know why he's so smug.

"What's the big deal about Rose wearing a dress?" Chopper curiously asks.

Usopp turns to the reindeer and still keeps a small smirk on his face. "Because we've never seen her in one before. Dares are about taking someone out of their comfort zone."

He looks to Luffy and nudges him with his elbow. "Besides, I'm sure out of all people, you'll want to see how good she looks in a dress."

Luffy tilts his head at the remark. "What are you talking about? Rose always looks good."

Usopp tiredly sighs at his captain's cluelessness before he looks to the door that Nami dragged Rose through. "Just wait and see, you'll know what I'm talking about."

Both innocent pirates are still unsure of what he means, but nonetheless they have no choice but to wait for the dare to be completed.

Meanwhile, after bringing Rose into their room, Nami is digging through her closet for something her crew mate to wear.

Rose tilts her head at the navigator's determination, because she doesn't understand why Usopp and Nami are so enthusiastic. "What exactly is the big deal with me wearing a dress?"

Nami comes out of the closet with a frown and a dress in her hand, then points to her model. "It's because you're always wearing that kind of outfit! You didn't even wear the dancer outfit in Alabasta!"

Rose looks down at her outfit of a green long sleeved shirt, under her knee length jacket, blue jeans, grey gloves and sneakers, then knits her eyebrows. "I still don't see why it'd make you guys so curious."

She tiredly sighs as she gives the brunette the new outfit. "Haven't you ever wanted to dress up?"

Rose only shrugs as she holds up the sleeveless dress by its thick straps to examine it. "Not really. I had to focus more on comfort, and coverage, than fashion growing up, so the habit kind of stuck. Besides, it's hard to fight and run in a dress, so I never developed an interest."

The navigator is taken aback by the explanation and remembers how Rose looked when they first met. Remembering all the scratches and bruises on the brunette's arms, and face, makes her understand why she has a habit of covering her skin.

However, it also motivates her to let out her friend's inner beauty more. She goes back in the closet to find some shoes while she speaks to her. "Well, that dress is form fitting, so you can still use your wind. Go put it on."

The tomboy hums in acknowledgement as she changes clothes. Nami wasn't kidding about how form fitting it was, it showed off Rose's small curves perfectly as it snugly hugs her form down to the middle of her thighs. However, the dress has a thin overlay skirt, with a slit in the front to show the bottom layered skirt, that flows to her knees.

With a look in the mirror, she takes a closer look, and immediately loves the colors the most. From the top of the dress to the outer layered skirt, the dress is dark blue, with silver stars dusting the edges of the skirt and waistline. The bottom layered skirt though, holds the same shade of black as on the right side of her necklace to give it a more night like look.

She still doesn't understand the big deal about wearing a dress, but she's glad that it doesn't reveal too much like other clothes that she's seen in this world.

She looks down at her necklace, that's out in the open by the scoop neckline, and adjusts it to center it on her chest.

While she's admiring her necklace's beauty, Nami comes out with a pair of black gladiator sandals, with a small beige wedge, and sees Rose staring at herself in the mirror.

Nami happily grins at how the dress fits and comes up to her. "It looks even better than I thought."

Rose looks back at her and shyly grins at the compliment. "Thanks, so we can go now?"

"Not yet." Nami drops the shoes, then goes to a dresser. "I know I have it in here..."

Rose puts on the sandals, that snugly fit her, then looks at Nami in confusion. "What are you looking for?"

Nami chuckles when she finds a hair tie, with a fake silver rose attached to it. "Something to complete the outfit."

Rose widens her eyes at the girly hair tie and shakes her head. "Can't we use a regular ponytail for this?"

"No way." Nami approaches her, takes her long, straight brown hair and uses the tie to put it in a ponytail, with the flower clearly shown in her hair.

Nami happily grins in satisfaction of the look as she turns around for some make up. "Now what else can we do?"

Rose tenses up when she sees her crew mate examining make up, then goes into her dresser where she keeps the pictures of her past adventures. "If we stop now, I'll give you a picture that you'd really want."

Nami stops what she's doing and looks at her in confusion. "What kind of picture would I want?"

Rose takes out a picture from when they were stealing gold from the snake's stomach and smirks at her. She shows Nami the picture, and the redhead drops her jaw at the photo of Sanji placing a crown on her head with both of them giving the other an adoring smile.

Nami widens her eyes at the photo and can barely take her eyes off it. "How the hell did you get this?!"

She tries to take the photo from Rose, but the brunette keeps it out of her reach.

Rose snickers at the frustrated redhead and looks back at the picture. "I took this when you guys were having your moment. Honestly, an earthquake could've happened, and you two wouldn't have noticed. You two make a cute couple."

Nami groans at the comment and scowls at her. "Shut up..."

The wind girl holds back from laughing, and softly grins at her. "Relax, I'm just teasing. If you don't want the picture, I'll just keep it."

The navigator is irritated by the blackmail, but nonetheless she takes the bait, and opens her hand to her. "No makeup..."

Rose hands her the photo with a sly grin. "Pleasure doing business with you."

Nami groans at losing for once, and puts the photo in her pocket. "I wouldn't be so smug if I were you. Even without makeup, Luffy's gonna shower you with compliments when he sees you."

Rose freezes at the comment, when she remembers the dare, and looks away from her. "You're getting Luffy mixed with Sanji now. He's not into this stuff."

"Only one way to find out." Nami takes Rose by the wrist and brings her outside.

"Here she is guys!" Nami calls out as she pushes Rose in front of her so Usopp, Luffy, and Chopper get a full view of her.

Chopper and Usopp are surprised at how the new look suits the astronomer and grins at the outcome.

"Wow, you look great!" Chopper says as he gets a closer look at her.

"Yea, great pick on the dress Nami." Usopp says as he gives her a thumbs up, which she returns.

Rose mutters a thanks, then looks at the captain to see him staring at her with wide eyes and his mouth slightly dropped.

She grows concerned when she sees him not moving, and walks up to the frozen pirate. "Luffy?"

Luffy only closes his mouth as a response, but keeps staring at her because he doesn't know how to react. Rose always looked good in his eyes, but it was like the dress was made for her. He's never seen her look so pretty and it's making his heart feel like it's jumping, like when he hears her laugh or sing.

Rose grows more worried by his lack of response and looks to the doctor. "Doc, we lost Luffy!"

"What?!" Chopper hurriedly runs up to him to try to wake him up.

Usopp and Nami are both laughing their butts off from Luffy's reaction, as they watch Chopper go into heavy point and shake him by the shoulders. "Luffy, wake up!"

Luffy snaps out of his daze and gets away from Chopper's grasp. "Stop it, what are you doing?!"

"He was getting you out of your trance! What the hell happened?!" Rose asks in fear of it happening again.

Luffy innocently blinks at her before he scratches the back of his head. "I don't know."

Both Rose and Chopper look at each other with concern before the doctor looks at him. "Has this happened before?"

Luffy shakes his head. "No, this is the first time."

Chopper furrows his eyebrows at the strangeness, but if he was just daydreaming then there's no issue. "Ok, but try to be careful."

The clueless boy nods with a toothy grin. "Alright, let's get back to the game!"

Rose hesitantly nods as she and the others get back to the circle.

Rose makes sure that her legs are closed as she sits down and spins the bottle for her turn. As soon as it stops, the freckled girl smirks in victory to see that her target is Nami.

She gives the navigator a devilish smirk and a mischievous glint her eyes. "Truth or dare Nami?"

Nami begins to grow nervous about the wind girl's intense stare and doesn't know which to choose. If she picks true, she might have to answer an embarrassing question regarding Sanji. If she chooses dare, then she might do something crazy...

She decides to risk it to avoid answering any embarrassing questions. "I choose dare."

Rose's smirk widens at the bad choice as she scoots next to her and whispers the challenge into her ear.

The boys grow more curious about the quiet dare, especially since with each passing second Nami's brown eyes widen in fear.

Once Rose pulls away, she gives Nami a friendly smile as if she didn't just give her a crazy dare. "If you want to back out, just cancel my debt and we can switch to truth."

Nami snaps out of it from the hearing that she can lose a debt, and stands up. "No way, I'm doing it!"

"Good luck!" She waves her off as she and the others watch Nami storm off into the kitchen.

The boys blink at the randomness before they look to Rose.

"What exactly did you make her do?" Chopper asks with curiosity of what's going on.

Rose just points to the door with a prideful smirk before they hear a scream of joy from Sanji and a thud right after.

The group runs over to the kitchen to see a stunned Nami, with an embarrassed blush decorating her face, standing over the collapsed chef who's laying in a puddle of blood from his nose bleed.

"Aah! Sanji!" Chopper runs to Sanji to give him first aid.

Usopp looks at the ordeal in shock before he timidly turns to Rose. "What the hell kind of dare did you give her?!"

"All I fucking did was dare her to kiss him! I didn't plan for him to react like that!" Rose says in shock that he got a nosebleed from just a kiss.

Robin, who's been sitting at the kitchen table the whole time with a book, giggles at the explanation. "So that's what happened. I was wondering why she barged in and pulled him by the tie to kiss him."

"I don't care why she did it, I'm just happy to get a kiss from my lovely Nami-san~!" Sanji says with a blissful smile on his face while Chopper stuffs tissues up his nose and sits the half-conscious man up.

While Nami is happy of the praise, she feels guilty for giving him a nosebleed, so she glares at the group that she played with. "Get out, the game's over got it?!"

Rose, Luffy, and Usopp both nervously nod before they run away to avoid Nami's wrath.

Robin giggles at her crewmates' fleeing then looks to see Nami give Chopper a couple of rags for Sanji then takes some for herself to clean up the blood on the floor. "Do you want some help Navigator-san?"

Nami shakes her head as she starts cleaning up as a way to make up for what happened. "It's fine, I got this."

Robin nods as she gets back to her book like nothing happened.

"Nami-san is so sweet~!" Sanji says in a lovesick daze while Chopper confirms that the bleeding has stopped, so he lays Sanji's head down on a pile of rags then puts a cold compress on his head.

Chopper sighs in relief that this isn't anything critical as he sits in a chair. "He'll be ok in a bit. He just needs to take it easy."

"Thanks Chopper." Nami says with a grin as she looks to the weakened chef, who's just smiling at her with hearts in his eyes.

Nami just looks away from his loving smile while she finishes cleaning up, then heads off to navigate the ship in hopes of finding another island, so Sanji can get a break tonight.

* * *

It didn't take long for Nami to spot a spring island during their travels, so she makes the decision to get supplies and dinner there.

The navigator looks to her log pose to figure out how much time they have to stay on the island then looks to the crew, who's working to dock the ship. "We have two days before the pose resets itself. We can re-supply tonight and then head out tomorrow morning."

"Alright, let's go!" Luffy says as he jumps off the ship with Usopp and Chopper running after him, and Zoro staying behind to take a nap.

Nami and Robin head off together to go shopping for clothes, while Sanji goes on his own to go grocery shopping.

Rose, who's still wearing the dress Usopp dared her to wear, with her backpack and guitar in hand to street perform. Once she gets a closer look, she's surprised to find that the locals are busy with setting up different stands.

Rose walks over to an elderly man and points to the town. "Excuse me, but what's going on here?"

The old man grins at the slim girl before he looks to the town. "You must not be from around here. You see, tonight is our annual festival to celebrate this town's founding day. We celebrate every year with a festival full of games, food, and a fireworks show. If you're not in a rush on your journey, you should stay and enjoy yourself."

Rose happily smiles at the news as she bows her head. "I definitely will. Thank you."

He chuckles at the polite girl as he returns the bow then goes on his way.

The wind girl raises her head and is more motivated to perform now than ever to raise some money to have fun tonight. She heads to a shopping district, that's a small distance from where all the festival workers are setting things up, and picks a place to perform for the townspeople.

Once her backpack is in front of her, and open to accept potential tips, she tunes up the guitar.

Once ready, she gets to work by strumming up the chords to the opening to "Better when I'm Dancing" by Meghan Trainor.

Most of the nearby civilians, who are walking around town, freeze at the sound of the upbeat music. They look to the performer in shock to see her moving around to the beat as she starts singing.

 _Don't think about it~_

 _Just move your body~_

 _Listen to the music~_

 _Sing, oh, ey, oh~_

 _Just move those left feet~_

 _Go ahead, get crazy~_

 _Anyone can do it~_

 _Sing, oh, ey, oh~_

The audience is surprised by un-planned performance, but they like the rhythm, so they stay around with a few dancing to the beat.

 _Show the world you've got that fire~_

 _Feel the rhythm getting louder~_

 _Show the room what you can do~_

 _Prove to them you got the moves~_

 _I don't know about you~_

 _But I feel better when I'm dancing, yeah, yeah~_

 _Better when I'm dancing, yeah, yeah~_

 _And we can do this together~_

 _I bet you feel better when you're dancing, yeah, yeah~_

The street performer is completely lost in her own world, and wouldn't have it any other way. She enjoys herself so much that she begins to move around with the dancing civilians in her performance.

 _When you finally let go~_

 _And you slay that solo~_

 _'Cause you listen to the music~_

 _Sing, oh, ey, oh~_

 _'Cause you're confident, babe~_

 _And you make your hips sway~_

 _We knew that you could do it~_

 _Sing, oh, ey, oh'_

 _Show the world you've got that fire (fire, baby)~_

 _Feel the rhythm getting louder~_

 _Show the room what you can do~_

 _Prove to them you got the moves~_

 _I don't know about you,~_

 _But I feel better when I'm dancing, yeah, yeah~_

 _Better when I'm dancing, yeah, yeah~_

 _And we can do this together~_

 _I bet you feel better when you're dancing, yeah, yeah~_

In a nearby shop, Nami and Robin are walking out, with a couple of bags in their hands, and freeze to what looks to be a dance party of twenty people on the street.

They know that the festival doesn't start until after sunset, so they get a closer look. The last thing they expected was to see Rose in the center of it all, and swaying around with her guitar.

Nami blinks at how Rose managed to draw such a quick crowd with her music, but grins at the nice melody. "Wow, she's pretty good."

"Good enough to attract some admirers." Robin says as she looks away from Rose to see a handsome young, slightly muscular, man standing in the back of the crowd.

However, there's no denying the look of admiration on his olive skinned face as he watches the wind girl dancing around to give the crowd a fun show.

Rose doesn't notice her crew mates' arrival as she continues to sway her body, and finishes off the song.

 _Feel better when I'm dancing, yeah, yeah_

 _Better when I'm dancing, yeah, yeah,_

 _Don't you know_

 _We can do this together_

 _Bet you feel better when you're dancing, yeah, yeah_

 _I feel better when I'm dancing_

 _I'm better when I'm dancing, hey_

 _Feel better when I'm, yeah, yeah_

She stops dancing around with a final spin as she plays the final chord, and giggles at the fun performance. The townspeople happily applaud the great performance, that gets the guitarist to remember where she is.

Rose bows to the crowd, then gives them a bright smile as she points to her open bag. "Thanks everyone, hope you're all getting fired up for tonight. If you like what you heard, please leave a tip in the bag. No amount is too small. I'll provide you with the next song in a minute."

Half of the crowd goes to fill her bag with tips of various amounts of beli while Rose double checks the tuning on her instrument.

Before Nami or Robin could approach the musician, the man who's been admiring her since the start of the show quickly approaches her.

Rose hums in confusion as the dark haired man's approach, before he shyly grins at her. "H-hello, my name is Daichi!"

The wind girl blinks at the nervous introduction, but nonetheless smiles up at the taller man. "Nice to meet you, I'm Rose."

Daichi's smile grows from the cute girl's friendly introduction as he relaxes. "Your song was amazing. You came to town to perform at the festival right? I definitely would've known if someone like you lived here."

She shakes her head at the question, and is completely oblivious to the fact that he's trying to flirt with her. "I'm not a part of tonight's festivities, but I'm sure my friends and I are gonna stay for it though."

The local keeps a small grin at the chance to get to know her more. "O-oh, well if you don't have any plans with your friends, do you want to hang out with me at the festival tonight? I know all of the best places."

Rose nods her head to the invitation with a sweet smile. "Sure, sounds like fun."

He blushes at the lovely smile, but nonetheless happily grins before he points to the clock tower at the center of town. "Thank you! Meet me at the clock tower at sundown!"

"Ok, I'll see you then." Rose gives him a small wave as she watches him run off at top speed. She chuckles at his enthusiasm as she gets ready to play the next song, but stops when she feels a hand on her shoulder.

She turns in shock to see Nami and Robin in front of her, with the red head looking at her in disbelief while Robin is keeping her calm smile on her face.

"What the hell was that?" Nami asks.

Rose doesn't understand why she's so frazzled so she tilts her head. "What do you mean?"

"We saw you accepting that boy's invitation." Robin says as she keeps her eyes on the path that Daichi just took.

Rose looks from one girl to the other before she starts understanding why Nami's upset. "Oh, I get it. You're worried that he's a bounty hunter or marine in disguise."

Nami twitches an eyebrow in frustration of her obliviousness and whacks her on the head, but her fist goes through her. "No you idiot! You just accepted an offer to go on a date with him!"

Rose is taken aback by the announcement before she starts laughing. "Hahahaha, you can't be serious!"

The navigator groans at her before she tries to spell it out for her. "Think about it, a boy invites a cute girl to a festival, they both have a fun time, then he kisses her under the fireworks! That's exactly what's happening here!"

The astronomer sweat drops at the theory, that's insane in her eyes, and looks at her blankly. "Have you been reading a bunch of cheesy romance novels lately?"

Nami scoffs in frustration before she throws her hands into the air as a sign that she gives up, and walks away.

Robin giggles at Nami's rashness and calmly turns to Rose. "You really don't see this as a date?"

The brunette shakes her head and gives her a normal smile. "Daichi doesn't know me at all, so there's no way it can be a date. It makes more sense that he's some sort of bounty hunter. If he tries anything, I'll just use him as a training dummy. If he's an honest guy, then I'll have a good time with a new friend, so it's a win-win."

The archaeologist chuckles at the simple strategy. "In that case, I suggest learning how to suffocate him by stealing the air from his lungs."

Rose chuckles at the morbid recommendation as she gets her hands on the guitar to get ready for the next song. "I won't go that far, but thanks for the suggestion. I'd better get back to the show."

Robin nods as she leaves while Rose continues to entertain the crowd with her music.

Once Robin manages to catch up with Nami, she finds the redhead still fuming about how oblivious Rose is.

"I can't believe her! How could she not see that it's a date?! She and Luffy are both so oblivious! I can't stand it!" She keeps muttering out her frustrations as they reach the docks to drop thei stuff off at the ship.

Robin giggles at the navigator's ranting as she speaks up. "Speaking of Captain-san, what will happen if he finds out?"

Nami immediately tenses up at the question before she shakes her head. "I don't know, I just hope he doesn't get us thrown out of town."

"Why would Luffy get us thrown out of town?" The girls freeze to see Sanji walking up to them with no bags in his hand.

Nami shakes her head, because she doesn't want him involved in this. "It's nothing, how are you feeling?"

Sanji grins at her concern. "I'm a lot better thank you. I just placed the supplies back on the ship."

Robin grins at this when she speaks up. "Now that you're done, do you have any plans for tonight, Chef-san?"

The chef looks at her in confusion, but answers her question. "No I don't."

Robin nods before she looks to Nami. "How about you Navigator-san, any plans?"

Nami shakes her head, so the archaeologist takes her bags. "Good, because I have plans tonight. You two enjoy your date."

The two pirates are shell shocked at the sudden set up as Robin walks off to let the couple try to figure out how she just match made them.

* * *

For the entire afternoon, Luffy, Usopp and Chopper have been exploring the town with excitement of learning about the festival.

Just as the sun is getting close to setting, the boys are searching around the festival for any game stalls to play.

"When is the fireworks supposed to start?" Chopper asks as he enjoys some cotton candy that he got from a food stand.

Usopp hums in thought as he looks up at the clock tower. "Not sure, it needs to be very dark for it to happen, so we have plenty of time."

Luffy keeps looking around for something to do when he spots a high striker game, that's twenty feet tall, with a bell at the top of the game. "Whoa, what's that?"

Usopp and Chopper spot the strength testing game and are shocked by how tall the target is.

Nonetheless, they know that they can't stop Luffy from wanting to play, so Usopp points to the game. "It's a test your strength game. They give you a hammer and you need hit the lever to make the puck hit the bell."

Luffy blinks at the simple rules and goes up to the game with Usopp and Chopper following.

They look to the five layered shelf, that's placed next to the stand, and holds various kinds of prizes from stuffed animals to trinkets.

A bulky middle aged man, wearing a t-shirt and jeans, grins at the kids from his seat next to the game. "You kids want to play? The higher you can get the puck, the higher the shelf you can choose from."

Usopp looks up at the water gun at the top shelf in awe before he looks to the owner. "So if we hit the bell then we can choose from the top shelf?"

"That's right. It costs 500 beli for a try."

The sniper brightens up at the chance as he turns to Luffy to ask him to win the gun, but stops when he sees his captain also staring at the top shelf.

He follows his gaze to see a yellow star plushie, that's a little bigger than his head sitting there.

Usopp can tell where Luffy's mind is going, because it reminds him of the crew's astronomer, so he smirks at him and pats him on the back. "After you win that, can you get me the gun?"

Luffy quickly nods with a large smile as he takes some money from his pocket and hands it to the owner. "I'm gonna play!"

The owner takes the money and hands the lanky boy a mallet. "Don't feel bad if you can't hit the bell kid. Depending on how high you go I can-!"

He cuts himself off when Luffy slams the hammer down on the lever to make the puck fly high enough to not only hit the bell, but break it off the game!

The whole group drops their jaws at the now flying bell as it descends from the sky. The brass bell breaks through the sky light of the building behind the stand, and they cringe when they hear it crash into the various musical instruments inside.

"MY SHOP!" The stall owner cries out in horror while the customers to the instrument shop run away in fright with some of the employees running outside to see what happened.

While all this chaos is happening, Usopp timidly goes behind his crew mates and whispers to them. "Let's go!"

Chopper and Luffy didn't need to be told twice as all three of them make a run for it, but stop when two employees block them off.

"You're not going anywhere!" The stall owner blocks their other path while he cracks his knuckles. "You're paying for the damages!"

Chopper hides behind the boys, with most of his body exposed, as he shakes in fear. "We only have a few thousand beli!"

The shopkeeper knows that it won't be enough, so he starts thinking about putting them to work to pay the debt. With his own stall being busted and the store about to close though, he's not sure how that could work.

A female employee looks at the attractive young man in the straw hat in thought before she smirks to her boss. "Hey boss, isn't _that_ event still open to volunteers? If anything, this boy would be perfect for it."

The boss immediately knows what she's talking about and smirks at the pirates. "You're right, both him and long nose can do it..."

Usopp and Luffy both grow nervous at the mischievous glints in their eyes, and get grabbed. Chopper is frightened about what's going on and follows them deeper into town to see what they're planning.

* * *

After having a fun afternoon of street performing, and raising a good amount of spending money, Rose happily walks back into festival after she returned her guitar to the ship.

She keeps her hands on her backpack straps as she easily skids through the bustling crowds, like she was back in New York. Her eyes wander from stand after stand while she passes them, and makes a mental note of which ones that she wants to go to. Once she reaches the clock tower, she looks around the crowds, but finds no signs of the boy who asked to meet her there.

She looks up to find that sun is about to set, so she knows that she won't have to wait too long. She leans her back to the building to relax, and watches the various forms of friends and families having the time of their lives in the festivities.

She grins at the families taking their children to different game stalls, then brings her attention to a young couple that walked past her. She sees the cute couple walking hand in hand and brings her thoughts to what Nami said. _*This is obviously a date!*_

The wind girl rolls her purple eyes at the thought, because she can't see it possible for this guy to suddenly be interested in her. She knows that she's not ugly, but she never saw herself as some gorgeous beauty either.

The way Luffy reacted to her wearing a dress was proof enough. He must've shut down from seeing how strange she looked.

She quietly sighs at remembering Luffy's trance and looks down at the dress that she's been dared to wear all day. If wearing something like this could get such a bad reaction from her captain, then she's positive that Daichi didn't ask her out. When he comes by, she'll be ready for any traps that he's set for her.

"Hey, Rose!" Speaking of the devil, Rose turns her head to the voice to see the person she's waiting for on his way to her. Daichi happily waves at her from half a block away as he tries to go through the heavy crowd, but with little luck.

The brunette puts on a smile and waves at Daichi, as she starts going to meet him halfway.

"ROSE!" The wind girl was barely able to take a few steps before she has to jump back to avoid Chopper, who's in walking point, running up to her.

Rose widens her eyes at the exhausted reindeer, who's trying to catch his breath, and looks around to see that he's alone. "What happened doc?!"

The poor reindeer changes into brain point and points to the direction he came from. "Luffy and Usopp are in trouble! I don't know how much time they have left!"

The wind girl barely hesitates to pick up the reindeer, starts flying higher than the crowd. Daichi stops walking and drops his jaw at the flying girl, along with half the crowd.

Rose sees Daichi dumbfounded by her power, and calls out to the boy. "Sorry, I gotta go!"

Before Daichi could call back to her, Rose flies off at top speed.

The wind girls is thankful that Nami gave a form fitting dress, so she doesn't have to worry about the skirt as she flies. She looks around for her crewmates, but she can't find them. "Where are they doc?"

"They're over there!" Chopper says as he points to a big red tent, that's half the size of a building, at the edge of the festival.

Rose sees Robin walking towards it, and lands in front to her. "Are you here for Luffy and Usopp too?!

Robin furrows her eyebrows in confusion. "What do you mean?"

Rose goes to explain, but stop when Usopp walks out with a tired frown.

The reindeer gets out of Rose's hold and looks to the sniper in shock. "You escaped?!"

He shakes his head and looks to the tent. "They only had room for one more, so they got Luffy to do it."

Rose furrows her eyebrows in confusion. "Do what exact-?"

She stops and widens her eyes at the sign that's propped outside of it. "What the ever flying fuck?"

She gets a closer look at the sign in hopes that this is some sort of joke. Robin looks at the sign and is almost as shocked as she is when they find out what this event is.

 **Come one come all, to the annual date auction! All proceeds go to charity, so no price is too small!**

 **Here are the rules for those who wish to bid for a date.**

 **The date can't say no to going out with you.**

 **The date will only last for tonight.**

 **The people being auctioned have the option to be armed with self defense weapons, so treat them kindly.**

Rose drops her jaw at what she just read before she looks to Chopper. "What the hell?! I thought you said he was in trouble!"

"He is! He broke a strength testing game, but didn't have the money to fix it! The stall owner dragged him and Usopp here to be auctioned!"

Robin is the first to snap out of it and giggles at the situation. "Heehee, I gotta see this!"

"Wait, we should be stopping this!" Rose says with their eyes moving over to her.

Usopp smirks at the flustered girl. "Why should we? He brought this on himself for breaking the game."

Robin hums in agreement. "A date won't certainly kill them. At the very least, Captain-san can gain some experience in-"

"Don't even say it!" Rose interrupts her and starts storming to the table at the front of the tent.

"WELCOME TO OUR ANNUAL DATE AUCTION! FOR OUR LOVELY LADIES, WE'LL BE STARTING THE EVENT WITH THE AMAZING MEN WHO ARE LOOKING FOR A FUN NIGHT WITH YOU! COME ON OUT BOYS!"

Rose stops when they hear the announcer starting up the event, and the ladies' cheers following right after!

"Looks like they're starting! Let's go see!" Usopp says as he rushes back in with Chopper following.

Rose groans at how they're allowing this while Robin smirks at her distress. "If you don't want Captain-san to be bought by someone, then you should win his bid Wind-chan."

Rose narrows her eyes at the woman, but she knows that at this point, that's the best option. She follows the archaeologist into the tent and widens her eyes to see that all the seats are filled and people are standing in the back including her crew mates.

She looks to the stage to see that ten men have been lined up on the stage, including her captain.

The straw hat captain notices Rose in the back and waves to her with a bright smile.

Rose looks away from the carefree boy, to see some girls in the audience waving back at him. She narrows her eyes at how they're giggling at his adorable smile, and gets more pissed off by the second.

She doesn't know why she's so aggravated, but she knows that Robin's right. To get her captain out of this situation, she has to win his bid, so she goes to her backpack to grab the money that she's saved up since her journey began.

The middle aged man on stage, who's in charge of the show, notices Luffy's waving and smirks. "Looks like our last minute volunteer is eager to go first! Let's give him the first run!"

Half of the ladies cheer when Luffy steps up and pisses off the wind girl enough for a light, hot breeze to fly out of her.

The other pirates flinch at her rage while the announcer approaches the pirate captain. "Tell us your name kid!"

"My name's Luffy, and I'm gonna be the king of the pirates!" Luffy says with a toothy smile.

Half the girls swoon while the announcer plays along with the claim. "You heard it here ladies! You have a chance to win a date with the future pirate king tonight! Now this rogue is not only cute, but strong enough to break our festival's high striker game! Because of that, he has a debt to pay so how about we help him out with starting our bid at 10 thousand beli?!"

The audience immediately gets to work on raising the bid to win a chance with Luffy.

"12 thousand!"

"15 thousand!"

"20 thousand!"

The pirates are shocked by the quick running bids as it continues to rise.

Rose goes to make her bid when she hears three girls in the back row gossiping.

"He's so cute! I can't wait for us to win him."

"He looks so innocent! I bet he's a virgin!"

"No doubt, but he won't be when we're done with him!" She raises her hand to put her next bid in, but freezes when something zooms past them from above!

Rose furiously flies past the audience and roughly lands next to Luffy on the stage!

Luffy innocently tilts his head in confusion when Rose wraps an arm around his shoulders, with her bangs covering her eyes. "Rose?"

The wind girl ignores him as she turns her head to the frozen announcer. "200 thousand..."

The MC snaps out of his shock and scowls at her. "I'll accept the bid, but you can't..."

He trails off when she lifts her head to reveal one of the most frightening glares that he's ever seen in his life. He pales at the menacing look and shakily turns to the audience. "U-uh, 200 thousand for Luffy, anyone want to challenge her?"

Rose turns her head to aim her glare at the audience, but more towards the back where those perverted girls are seated.

The perverts take the hint and keep their mouths shut along with the rest of the audience.

Chopper shivers at the frightening look, and stays behind Robin. "I didn't know she could be so scary..."

"Yea, but it looks like Luffy will be fine. Let's go." Usopp says as he and the other pirates sneak out of the tent, and head off to the festival.

The announcer doesn't hear any more bids so he quickly speaks up. "Alright, sold for 200 thousand! C-congratulations, you can pay outside! Please go away!"

Rose nods as she takes her arm off of Luffy's shoulders to take his hand and leads him off the stage. Luffy has no idea what just happened, but he's happy that she won his bid, so he lets her lead him away.

She leads him past the audience with people looking away from the wind girl in fear of her harming them. The wind girl couldn't care less as she walks past them, but freezes when she sees that Robin and the others left. "What the fuck?! Where are the others?!"

Luffy looks over her to see no one else is there. "I don't know. I think they left when you were bidding."

Rose couldn't believe this, but she has other problems to deal with, so she shrugs it off. "Alright, let's just get out of here."

They see the table just outside the tent, with the person in charge of paying, along with the owner of the game Luffy broke.

Rose approaches the two of them and provides them with the 200 thousand beli. "Anything else I need?"

The volunteer shakes his head as he counts the money to make sure that it's all there.

The game owner is satisfied with how this money can fix his skylight and his game, and grins at her. "You better be careful with this one. He's full of surprises."

"Trust me, I know." Rose says while she's still slightly upset that she lost almost all of her money, but doesn't regret it.

The volunteer nods in satisfaction as he hands the game owner the money. "It's all here."

"Thanks for letting him in." He says but when the couple starts leaving he calls out to them. "Hold on!"

The two of them stop and turn around to see him grabbing the star plushie from under the table. Rose tilts her head in confusion as he walks up to them and hands it to Luffy. "You still won the game so you can keep it. Hope there's no hard feelings."

Luffy nods with a toothy grin as he takes the toy with a happy grin. "Yea, thanks!"

Rose's lingering anger melts away from her captain's adorable smile as he turns to her. "Here, you can have it as thanks for getting me out of there."

Rose looks down at the cute plush, and widens her eyes at the star shaped toy that reminds her of Kingdom Hearts' paopu fruit but without the leaf. She doesn't remember the meaning the fruit had in the game, but the gesture gives her a wide grin as she takes it into her free hand. "Thanks, let's get out of here."

Luffy nods as he takes the lead to get them away from the auction.

The astronomer looks down at their still joined hands, and realizes that they've been holding hands since she won his auction. She blushes in embarrassment before she wiggles her hand free.

Luffy already misses the warmth of her hand, but when he sees her blush he looks at her in confusion. "Why's your face red this time?"

Rose looks away from him as she settles down her blush. "Hand holding can sometimes be affection too..."

He grows more confused by the explanation. "But you just got red."

"Maybe I'm getting better." Rose says as her blush finally goes away.

He grins at the news that she's getting better before he looks around the town. "So what now?"

Rose freezes at the question, because she has no idea. She looks around the heavy crowd to see no signs of her crew mates anywhere. "I have no idea. Maybe we can find the others."

Luffy tilts his head at the suggestion. "Is that how dates normally go?"

Rose stops at the question, when she remembers that she actually bought a date with Luffy, and hastily shakes her head. "No they don't, but uh... Wait, what do you think a date is?"

"When two people who are close to each other hang out." Luffy bluntly answers.

Rose nods in satisfaction of him understanding the gist of it. "That's pretty much what it is, but I don't want to force you into one because of some auction."

Luffy knits his eyebrows in confusion. "We hang out a bunch already, what's the difference?"

Rose quietly sighs as she nervously scratches the back of her head. "These two people are a lot closer than friends."

"I wanna see what it's like, be my date." Luffy says without any hesitation.

The brunette should've seen that coming, but she has a hard time finding a reason that can convince him not to. She never experienced one for herself, so it could be better to experience it with someone she trusts. As long as she doesn't force him to do anything, or do something stupid, then there shouldn't be any problems.

She takes a deep breath before she looks him in the eyes. "Alright, but this is a friend date. This means we do it just to see what it's like."

Luffy happily nods to the compromise. "Alright, then let's-"

He cuts himself off when both their stomachs growl at the same time.

Rose looks down at her hungry stomach and chuckles. "Let's go get something to eat. It'll take forever to wait in line at a stand, so let's head to a restaurant."

Luffy quickly agrees as he takes her by the hand, and leads her to the closest restaurant. "Alright, let's go!"

Rose looks down at the two joined hands and softly grins at the warmth before she intertwines her fingers with his.

They reach a bar, and take a seat at a small table in the far of the half full room. With a lot of people eating at the festival, the waiters were quick to get their orders in. Even Luffy's large order of meat was given to him in a flash, which brought joy to both of the pirates.

Even while Luffy was eating his own meal, he still tried to swipe a piece of Rose's chicken, but was stopped every time by Rose's fork.

It didn't take long for both of them to finish with both of them satisfied with the meal. Even though Luffy couldn't win against Rose in their usual food picking war, he's happy with the good meal as he gets up. "I'm gonna take a leak. I'll be right back."

Rose nods as she watches him head off. She relaxes in her seat when the door opens to see a group of five young men enter the place.

She curiously looks to the group and spots Daichi as one of them.

The young man doesn't notice the wind girl as they take a seat a few tables down. He sits on a chair with his back to her so there's no chance of her being seen.

Rose looks to him, and feels like she owes him a proper apology. After all, she promised to hang out with him first, but pretty much blew him off. Because of that, she gets up and starts approaching them, but stops just a table away when she sees one of them talking to Daichi.

"I can't believe you lost our bounty Daichi."

The wind girl freezes at the complaint and takes a seat at the empty table to continue eavesdropping.

Daichi doesn't notice the girl behind him as he groans to himself. "I know, I even pulled that stupid shy guy act to get the bitch's guard down. If that weird raccoon dog didn't show up, we would've had the 17 million easily."

He scoffs to himself as a waitress provides them with drinks. He takes his mug of beer as he continues talking. "At least I get why they named her Wind Rider now. That curve-less freak can actually-"

He's cut off when Rose approaches him from behind, grabs the back of his hair and slams his face to the table as hard as possible!

The other men are completely dumbfounded about what just happened while Daichi cradles his bleeding nose. He turns around in anger and freezes when he sees his target behind him.

He shivers in fear of the menacing look in her eyes, but his body moves on its own as he gets up and looks to his men. "Don't just sit there, you goons! That's the bounty!"

The patrons look at the noisy people with curiosity while the rest of the bounty hunters get up and grab their weapons.

Rose scoffs at the men in front of her as she gives them a devilish smirk. "You had all this planned for me? I can't say that I'm not flattered."

Daichi narrows his dark eyes at the pirate as he points his pistol at her. "I don't give a fuck about what you're feeling. Give up now and I'll only rough you up a little for hitting me."

Rose furrows her eyebrows as if she's thinking hard on the options, then slowly walks to him with her hands behind her back. "I guess I only have one choice then."

Daichi smirks in satisfaction as he lowers the gun, but the smile is short lived when Rose reveals an orb of wind in her right hand, and presses it to his stomach!

The bounty hunter barely had time to think when he's suddenly sent flying backwards in a spin until his back hits the wall. The man falls unconscious and leaves cracks on the wall as he hits face first on the ground.

The rest of the men drop their jaws at the insane sight while the civilian customers run away.

Rose however, doesn't act fazed as all as she looks down at her hand with a carefree grin. "Alright, not much on long range yet, but pretty good on close range."

"Don't act so smug, you creepy witch!" One of the bounty hunters yells out as he charges at her with a sword in hand.

The wind girl however, ignores him as she lets his metal blade pass through her. The older man couldn't believe his eyes as his whole body runs through her and crashes into the table behind her where a group of thugs were seated.

The crash sent the table tumbling and threw down all the food and booze that was set for them. Saying that the gang of muscular men were pissed, was an understatement.

They were so pissed that not only the thugs on that table, but in the three other tables they were sitting at, got up with their guns and swords ready. "Oh, it's on now!"

In a matter of seconds, an all out barfight gave way with no one pulling any punches!

The employees hid behind the bar to avoid getting caught in the crossfire and started placing bets on who will be the last one standing.

Meanwhile, Luffy just walked out of the bathroom and stopped in his tracks when he sees all the chaos! He looks around for his date, and freezes when he sees her almost cackling in delight as she turns both her arms into small twisters to send a few guys, who were twice her size, flying!

He thought she was pretty back on the ship, but how he sees her right now puts that moment to shame. The way that she's cutting loose in the fight with a gleeful smile on her face is absolutely beautiful in his eyes, and he starts getting the mystery feeling in his chest again.

"Oi kid, what are you doing?!" One of the employees snaps him out of his daze by grabbing him by the side of his shirt and pulling him behind the bar.

"You need to be careful, these people are nuts!" Another employee says as he keeps the money for the bets behind them.

Luffy's weird feeling in his chest fades and looks at them in confusion. "What happened?!"

A scrawny guy flinches when an unconscious guy crashes into the wall right above them then quickly explains the situation. "From what I can tell, a bounty hunter tricked this pirate girl into going on a date with him to lure her into a trap. She blew him off for some reason, but they came in here while she was eating. She found out the truth and sent him flying with her wind powers. Now she, the dude's gang, and a bunch of other random thugs are beating the shit out of each other."

"More like the pirate's beating the crap out of all of them..." A chubby girl says as she peeks over the counter to see Rose using her twister arms to take down four guys at once!

Luffy widens his eyes at the story, but his shock is immediately replaced by rage of knowing that they tried to capture Rose. He immediately gets up and runs into the fray before anyone could stop him.

Rose throws someone out the door with a gust, and widens her eyes when she sees Luffy punch a guy out. She grins at the new arrival to the fight, while a thug runs through her, but her grin fades when sees her captain's angry face.

She shakes her head to stay focused as she practices turning her arms into tornadoes on two thugs. It barely took a minute for the two pirates to finish the fight with them as the last ones standing.

The hidden employees cautiously come out of hiding, with a waitress taking her winnings, and are speechless of the sight. They could barely understand how at least a dozen men sprawled all over the floor with the broken tables, glasses and plates everywhere, but the two scrawny teenagers didn't get a scratch on them.

The wind girl chuckles at the fun fight before she looks to her captain to see that he's still upset. "What's the matter?"

Luffy keeps a frown on his face as he looks for anyone else to punch. "I heard about what happened! Which one of them tried to date you?!"

Rose widens her eyes at the angry question, but tiredly sighs as she points to Daichi, who's still knocked out. "He didn't try to date me. He tried to lure me into a trap to capture me. I already knew that's what he was planning, and was gonna use him as a punching bag. Before we could even fight though, doc got to me and told me you were in trouble. I wound up ditching him to go help you."

Luffy loses his jealousy from the explanation and immediately smiles at the fact that Rose rushed to help him. "Thanks, ready to go?"

"Not yet." She goes through the bounty hunters and thugs' things and took their treasure, that's worth at least a million beli and brings them to the bar. "I'm sorry about the chaos. Would this cover the damages as well as our meals?"

The girl quickly nods as she takes the loot. "Absolutely, thank-!"

BANG!

A gunshot was fired straight at the side of Rose's head and shuts everyone up!

Especially since Rose didn't collapse due to the bullet only phasing through her air head!

Everyone looks in shock to see that the shot was made by Daichi.

The bounty hunter trembles on the floor, from the sight of the bullet not even affecting his target, and accidentally drops his still smoking gun. "What the fuck are you?!"

"Someone you just pissed off..." Rose says with a scowl as she starts approaching him with hot wind blowing off of her.

Luffy lowers his head as he scowls at the bounty hunter and tightens his fists.

However, the novice hunter barely realizes who the pirate captain is, because he's barely thinking straight from all the fear! He rushes to grab his gun and aims it at the straw hat. "Stay right where you are!"

Rose stops halfway towards him when she sees where he's aiming at, and is ready to beat the living shit out of him. Even though she knows that guns won't affect Luffy, she grows furious that he even threatened him, and gives him a frightening glare while she picks him up with her wind.

"You must be a fucking masochist..." Rose says as she makes a wind orb in her right hand that's twice the size of what she's been using.

Daichi nearly wets himself from the scary look, as the winds gets him closer to her, but he keeps his weapon aimed at Luffy. "Put me down you ugly bi-!"

Luffy cuts him off by stretching his fist towards him and punches him in the face!

The punch was hard enough for him to not only send him flying off Rose's wind, but out the already broken window!

Rose drops her jaw at the punch as she cancels out her wind and goes to the window to see Daichi lying unconsciously in a pile of garbage. She twitches an eyebrow at the missed chance to test her abilities and turns to her captain. "What the hell?! He was _my_ opponent!"

Luffy doesn't look sorry at all as he scowls at her. "I can't do nothing when he tried to hurt you, and then lie about you!"

The wind girl's anger fades from the comment and tilts her head curiously. "Lie about me?"

"Yea, you're too pretty to be ugly!"

Rose's heart skips a few beats from the sudden, and pure, compliment as she feels her face heat up. She completely forgets about the bar fight that they went through and she gives him a small grin. "T-thanks, let's get back to the festival."

"Yea!" He happily takes her hand and runs out the building with her, and leaves the crazy scene and stunned employees behind.

* * *

As the evening continued on, Rose and Luffy have been exploring every booth that they could find. They competed in every game that they came across from darts to water guns with neither of them backing down from the challenge. Regardless of the big crowds that surrounded them while they conquered the stands, it felt like they were the only ones there because of how much they enjoyed each other's company.

It felt like the night would never end for the young couple as they finished another game, but freeze as the clock tower started chiming.

Rose and Luffy look to each other in confusion before they look around to see swarms of people heading to the fields on the outside of town.

"You two better go follow them to the field. That chime is the sign that the fireworks show is going to start soon." The stall owner says as she starts closing up her stand.

"Fireworks?! Awesome!" Luffy says with a toothy grin as he goes to follow the crowd, but Rose stops him by taking his hand.

He looks back at his date in confusion to see her wearing a playful smirk on her face.

"Don't go that way, I know a better place to see them!" She doesn't give him a chance to respond as she takes him further into town.

Luffy sees that it's the exact opposite of where the locals are going, and looks at her in confusion. "What's this better place?"

She chuckles to him as she leads him towards the clock tower, which is the highest building that the town has to offer. "You'll see..."

The rubber man pouts at the cryptic answer, but he allows her to take the lead until they stop at the base of the tower.

Rose almost giggles in excitement as she creates some wind for the two of them and starts bringing them up.

When she brings them up to the roof, they take a seat with neither of them releasing the other's hand. Luffy looks around at the town from the new height, then looks to his date. "Why'd you choose this spot?"

The wind girl smiles at the question and starts to remember both the fun, yet lonely, times she saw fireworks from the roof of her foster home. "I've learned from experience that fireworks are best seen from high places. You'll see why in a moment."

She looks to the direction of the show, with Luffy following her gaze just when the first rocket is shot up from a distance.

As soon as the first firework exploded, both pirates are entranced by beautiful sight of a giant red flower blooming in the sky. One after the other, fireworks of every color that they can imagine lights the night sky.

With the height that they're at, they're face to face with the amazing show, and feel like they have a front row seat to it all.

Luffy absolutely loves the view and can't take his eyes off the show. "This is awesome!"

"Told ya." Rose says as she looks to him, then freezes at his smile that's competing with the brightness of the fireworks.

She's used to seeing that beautiful smile, but the way that the fireworks shine on his face makes it looks like his dark eyes are changing into different colors. In all honesty, she could look at the sight all day and never get bored.

Luffy feels a pair of eyes on him, and looks to see Rose jolt when he turned his head. "What's up?"

She shakes her head and looks back to the fireworks with a nervous grin. "N-nothing, just glad you're enjoying the show."

Luffy blinks at the shy answer before he happily grins at her. "Thanks, I'm glad you brought me here."

He squeezes her hand then gets back to watching the show. As the lights continued to brighten the night sky, the two pirates unconsciously lean against one another and silently enjoy each other's company for the rest of the show.

Once the last firework faded into the night, both pirates look around to see if there's anything else they can do. However, they can only see the audience, that was in the fields, either closing down the stands or are going home.

It's easy to tell that the festival is over, so Rose pulls her hand away from Luffy's and stands up to stretch her legs. "It's getting late, we should get back to the ship."

Luffy sadly frowns at their fun ending, but he's starting to get tired so he gets up with her. "Alright..."

Rose is taken back by the disappointment in his voice, but doesn't think too much about it as she creates a gust of wind for them to start floating towards the docks.

While the wind girl is bringing them back to the ship, Luffy is looking down at the town below them. As he scans the area, he spots a young couple in front of a house.

He intensely stares at them as they give each other compliments, then end their conversation with a kiss. Just as the two lovers pull away for one of them to go home, Rose taps him on the shoulder.

He snaps out of his daze, and looks to see Rose looking at him in concern. "What's up?"

"You looked like you were in a daze again, what are you looking at?" Rose asks as she follows his gaze, but only sees a man walking home.

"You missed it." Luffy says with a grin.

Rose is grateful that he didn't fall into a daze like earlier today, and grins back at him. "Too bad I missed it. Did you have fun tonight?"

Her captain happily nods to the question. "Yea, this was great!"

She chuckles at his enthusiasm. "Glad you had fun too."

The brunette sees that they've reached the docks, so she lands them on the deck but finds that there's no one else on the deck.

She doesn't think too much of it, as she grins at him. "I'll see you tomorrow. Good night."

She turns around to leave, but Luffy stops her by grabbing her hand. She looks down at her hand in confusion, then looks at her date to see him staring at her with determination in his eyes.

It feels like butterflies are flying around in her stomach from the look he's giving her, and doesn't understand why. "W-what are you-?"

She stops talking when he leans into her, but Rose accidentally makes her body airy, so he trips through her and head butts the mast.

Rose takes a step back from him and tries to understand what the hell just happened. "What the crap were you doing?"

Luffy rubs his aching face then frowns in disappointment of his plan failing. "I was trying to kiss you like that couple did..."

She calms down at the explanation and looks at him in confusion. "What couple?"

"The one I saw while we were flying back. People kiss each other to end their dates right?"

Rose starts to blush at the question and rubs the back of her neck nervously. "Some do, and some don't. We don't have to since this is a friend date."

"But I want to." Luffy bluntly says which makes her blush spread all over her face.

She couldn't believe what she's hearing, and tries to understand why he would. She starts thinking about how at the beginning, he wanted to learn how a date goes, so he'd want to experience the aspects from start to finish. That's the only way she could make sense of him wanting a kiss from her.

As for herself though, she barely knows what she wants. All she knows is that she's been on an emotional rollercoaster all day thanks to her captain, and needs some revenge.

She starts to remember how this all started, and cheekily smiles at him. "Ok, I'll-!" She looks out at the dock and widens her eyes. "Hey, is that Sanji with a cart full of meat?!"

"Where?!" He looks to the docks to find no meat in sight. "I don't see-"

He stops talking and freezes when he feels a pair of soft lips on his cheek.

Rose quickly pulls away from Luffy, with a red hue over her freckled cheeks, and runs to the door. "Good night!"

He turns his head with wide eyes to find Rose running inside like a madwoman!

Even though Rose knows that no one is around, she covers her face in embarrassment of what she did. Once she's in her room, she closes the door behind her and catches her breath. All she could hear was her pounding heart as she puts down her bag and sits down on her futon.

She replays the kiss in her mind, and gently touches her lips. While she's glad she was able to surprise him for once, the way Luffy looked at her when he tried to kiss her can't escape her mind. If he didn't pass through her, she knows that she would've melted into the kiss he gave her.

She groans to herself as she pulls her hair free from her ponytail and gets up to get some pajamas. _*Motherfucker, I'm starting to act like the fucking snake bitch Hancock! All this date shit is getting in my head! I can't have a crush on Luffy!*_

She finished changing clothes and goes to her bag, to get some socks, but instead sees the star plushie he gave her. She remembers the good time she had with her captain thanks to the cute prize, and calms herself down. _*I shouldn't worry about shit like this, we both had a great time. That's all that matters...*_

She hugs the toy to her chest and gets in her bed, with her conflicting feelings towards her captain pushed to the back of her mind.

Meanwhile, Luffy is still on the deck, and completely shocked about the surprise kiss. He touches his left cheek where she kissed him, and feels, not only his face heat up from a light blush, but also his heart pounding from remembering the feeling. "What the hell is going on with me?"

"What are you doing Luffy?" The captain looks down to find Nami and Sanji heading back together.

The rubber man lets go of his cheek while his heart settles down, and his blush fades, then looks to his crew mates who are climbing onboard. "Going to bed."

He walked back inside before anyone could ask him anymore questions.

The two pirates look to each other for a moment before they shrug it off. Both pirates had a wonderful time at the festival, and watching the fireworks in the fields, so they're both ready to follow Luffy's example. Before Sanji goes in though, he gives his date a charming grin and takes her hand. "Thank you for accompanying me tonight Nami-san, I had a wonderful time."

Nami is taken aback by the farewell when Sanji kisses the back of her hand. "I-I had a good time too. Good night."

"Good night." Sanji says as he releases her hand and goes inside with a love filled grin.

She looks down at her hand then lightly blushes at the kiss she received. She does her best to shake it off as she goes inside. Once in her room, she finds Rose already asleep in her pajamas.

Nami sees the dress that she lent Rose neatly folded on her bed, with the ponytail placed on top and quietly sighs in disappointment. "She could've waited up..."

She goes to put the outfit away before she sees her crew mate's smiling in her sleep as she holds her toy close to her chest.

The navigator softly smiles at the sight and can tell that she had as much fun as she did tonight. Tomorrow though, a full day of travelling and questions of how it went will be made, so she heads off to bed to be ready for the next journey.

TO BE CONTINUED

* * *

 **A/N: Hey guys, I hoped you enjoyed the new chapter.**

 **Before I get the crew into the Davy Back Fight Arc, I think I'm going to do one more filler but this time with Lily. We definitely haven't seen the last of her so I would like to show what happened before we continue. If you guys don't want to read I suggest waiting until the following chapter to continue. Until then, f** **or those of you that celebrate, Happy Easter! For those of you that don't I hope you're enjoying the spring weather! :)**


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